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Microsoft To Issue Blanket License To NGOs
itwbennett writes "Following a recent report that Russian police have used software copyright raids to seize computers of activist groups, Microsoft announced it will issue a blanket software license to nonprofit groups and journalist groups outside the US. The new blanket license should remove software piracy as an excuse for 'nefarious actions' by enforcement authorities, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith wrote. The new license 'cuts in one swoop the Gordian knot that otherwise is getting in the way of our desired handling of these legal issues,' he said. 'The law in Russia (and many other countries) requires that one must provide truthful information about the facts in response to a subpoena or other judicial process. With this new software license, we effectively change the factual situation at hand. Now our information will fully exonerate any qualifying [nonprofit], by showing that it has a valid license to our software.'"
And the qualifier is, of course, "qualifying." The article doesn't say who qualifies
The article does not, because it talks about a future event ("will issue a license"). I would imagine that the text of said license would go for over 40 pages (as usual) detailing out who qualifies for what.
And the qualifier is, of course, "qualifying." The article doesn't say who qualifies, and says that journalists and NGOs don't have to do anything to get the license, which means they don't find out that they don't qualify until they're in the same situation they're already facing, I guess.
This isn't the sort of situation where microsoft would be trying to weasel. More importantly, the way it worked from what I can tell, is that russian authorities needed Microsoft lawyers to essentially sign-off on the complaints against dissidents -- they'd indicate they had "reason to beleive" group-X was using priated software, and the MS-attack-lawyers would say 'raid away'.
This change is essentially instructions from Microsoft to its own legal counsel saying if its an NGO or Journalist etc then they have a license, and not to be party to police requests.
Strictly speaking they could instruct their lawyers to refuse to pursue cases against NGOs and so on without the license, but this 'grant of license' is:
a) good PR
b) makes it harder (impossible?) to for the police to build a software piracy case as long as the legal system isn't competely subverted. The Microsoft lawyer simply says "they are licensed" end of story. He doesn't have to say, something like "my client isn't interested in prosecuting a case against them". Its more thorough and complete this way. It changes from "they might be doing something wrong, but we don't care to find out" to "we are completely satisfied that they are licensed".
which means they don't find out that they don't qualify until they're in the same situation they're already facing, I guess.
As you can see they don't really need to "know they qualify". The protection is indirect - its really more a way to give microsoft's lawyers an out from having to cooperate with russian police against NGOs more than direct protection for the end user. At least that's how i read it.