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E-Waste Innovator Will Go To Jail For Making Windows Restore Disks That Only Worked With Valid Licenses (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: California man Eric Lundgren, an electronic waste entrepreneur who produced tens of thousands of Windows restore disks intended to extend the lifespan of aging computers, lost a federal appeals court case in Miami after it ruled "he had infringed Microsoft's products to the tune of $700,000," the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. Per the Post, the appeals court ruled Lundgren's original sentence of 15 months in prison and a $50,000 fine would stay, despite the software being freely available online and only compatible with valid Windows licenses: "The appeals court upheld a federal district judge's ruling that the disks made by Eric Lundgren to restore Microsoft operating systems had a value of $25 apiece, even though they could be downloaded free and could be used only on computers with a valid Microsoft license. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit initially granted Lundgren an emergency stay of his prison sentence, shortly before he was to surrender, but then affirmed his original 15-month sentence and $50,000 fine without hearing oral argument in a ruling issued April 11." All told, the court valued 28,000 restore disks he produced at $700,000, despite testimony from software expert Glenn Weadock that they were worth essentially zero.
the disks had “labels nearly identical to the discs provided by Dell for its computers and had the Windows and Dell logos,” the Times wrote. As a result, Lundgren pleaded guilty to two of 21 charges, conspiracy and copyright infringement. He told the paper, “If I had just written ‘Eric’s Restore Disc’ on there, it would have been fine.”
It probably wouldn't have been fine though, he was still distributing copies of software without the copyright owner's permission.
What he probably could have done legally was write his own software and made restore disks with that. But copying software is much cheaper than writing software.
Because no one is actually looking at this with all the facts, we all just jump on a bandwagon when we read between the lines.
From the original news story about the original court case (not the appeal) "He thought that producing and selling restore discs to computer refurbishers — saving them the hassle of downloading the software and burning new discs — would encourage more secondhand sales. In his view, the new owners were entitled to the software, and this just made it easier."
You can freely download and burn the restore disk without any legal ramifications, you CAN NOT sell the restore disk unless you have authorization to do so.
That it not how it works. When the copyright expires, it becomes public domain.
Thanks to a bought and sold congress and Mickey Mouse that expiration date is infinity minus one.
The answer is copyright. And he didn't have the right to copy and distribute. Technically not even for free.
While there are some interesting posts about various legal topics here, perhaps a summary of what actually happened would be helpful.
Lundgren restore discs were labeled in a way to make them look almost identical to similar restore discs sent out by Dell. Apparently they had Microsoft's Windows logo on them.
He was charging 25 cents each for the discs. This means that in effect he was making money from selling the discs.
Customs intercepted the shipment of his discs, possibly through a random inspection. Microsoft got upset because they deliberately want it to be very difficult to get old, but still legal version of Windows working this way because they want people to just give up a buy a new copy, which makes money for Microsoft.
He pleaded guilty to 2 of 21 charges he faced, which is the main reason he's going to jail. He pleaded guilty. And he may have had some questionable legal representation because some of the arguments he makes against the final verdict are really items that his attorney should have brought up in court, but apparently did not.
They sell copies of that work.
Wrong. Try again.
The license use of that work. They don't sell copies of that work.
I, for one, can't trust that someone promoting nullification can actually respect the law or its application.
That's because you're completely backwards. The exact opposite is true. It's the judges you can't trust. They lie to juries right at the beginning of trials. They say "if the facts are such and such, you must find the defendant guilty". But that's a lie. They have the right to return any verdict they want, and cannot be punished for it. When the judge begins the proceedings with a lie to the people who are supposed to decide guilt, you know that the whole system is corrupt.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"