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Microsoft To Court: Make Comcast Give Us Windows-Pirating Subscriber's Info (networkworld.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is using the IP address 'voluntarily' collected during its software activation process to sue a Comcast subscriber for pirating thousands of copies of Windows and Office. The Redmond giant wants the court to issue a subpoena which will force Comcast to hand over the pirating subscriber's info. If the infringing IP address belongs to another ISP which obtained it via Comcast, then Microsoft wants that ISP's info and the right to subpoena it as well. "Defendants activated and attempted to activate at least several thousand copies of Microsoft software, much of which was pirated and unlicensed," Microsoft's legal team wrote. The product keys "known to have been stolen" from Microsoft's supply chain were used to activate Windows 8, Windows 7, Office 2010, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008. The product keys, Microsoft said, were used "more times than is authorized by the applicable software license," used by "someone other than the authorized licensee," or were "activated outside the region for which they were intended." Whether or not the IP traces back to a Comcast subscriber or was assigned by Comcast to a different ISP, as the The Register pointed out, "It would be a significant gaffe on behalf of the alleged pirates if the IP address data pointed to their real identifies."
So... Microsoft is protecting its intellectual property by using information that everyone knows is transmitted when Windows is activated? Why is this news?
As proven before, IP addresses are a really poor way to identify someone. Considering the circumstances, it could very well be a zombie PC in a larger botnet being identified.
If a bank robber used a blue Ford as a getaway car, that doesn't mean that the bank can subpoena the ownership records for every blue Ford so they can stop by their houses and see if that was the car that happened to be used in the robbery.
The bank can't do that, but the police said who investigate robberies can get the list for of blue Fords and compare the owner's names to known criminals. And to be a proper car analogy, they would be after a blue Ford with the license plate ABC123. If it turned out that the car was stolen for the bank job then that would be the same as a botnet that was using that IP address.
It's copyright infringement whether the copy was activated or not - the copyright act prohibits unauthorized reproduction, not unauthorized activation. The copyright is also registered. That means that they are entitled to statutory damages whether they could have acted to further limit their losses or not.
They have three years to file a claim.
They don't have to prove either of those at this time -- they simply have to show that what they are requesting is relevant to those facts. The identify of the subscriber is certainly relevant to determing whether that person is an authorized licensee and is licensed to use those keys within that region.
It's precisely the court's job to enforce the minutia of the license terms, because the license terms are a condition of the license (e.g., "we grant you the right to install and run that one copy on one computer (the licensed computer), for use by one person at a time, but only if you comply with all the terms of this agreement." Without the license it's copyright infringement. The rules don't change simply because it's Microsoft enforcing a windows license and not an open source advocate enforcing the GPL.
Have fun with your theories of how this should work, but no Federal district court (or appellate court) is going to buy them because their job is to interpret and enforce the statute, not ad hoc theories of mitigation, laches, and evidence that you learned from poorly scripted TV dramas.
Something many aren't aware of is if you change or upgrade your system you are subtracting numbers from a total allowed before your OS is no longer activated or legal and must be reactivated or re-purchased.
I use to know them for NT but it's been awhile. A CPU change I know counts as 2 points, a trick was to claim you had a NIC card as it added 2 points to the total.
“Significant” hardware changes can also trigger the Windows activation process again. For example, if you swap out multiple components on your PC at the same time, you may have to go through the activation process. Microsoft hasn’t explained exactly which hardware changes will trigger this.
http://www.howtogeek.com/18284...
Not at all. Microsoft has always chased down commercial level piracy. I find it incredible that people are upset about this. This is business as usual for them.