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Microsoft Calls Today Global Anti-Piracy Day

Posted by timothy on Tue Oct 21, 2008 09:40 AM
from the pirates-live-for-live-cd-distros dept.
Microsoft Operating Systems Software The Almighty Buck Windows
arcticstoat points out an article at Custom PC, according to which: "Microsoft has announced that today is Global Anti-Piracy Day. Launching several global initiatives, the aim is to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft says is caused by piracy. ... As well as educating people about piracy, Microsoft has also initiated a huge list of legal proceedings that it's taking out against pirates. Microsoft isn't messing about when it says 'global' either. The list of 49 countries that Microsoft is targeting spans six continents, and ranges from the UK and the US all the way through to Chile, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia and China." Interestingly enough, unauthorized copies of Vista might not be harming the company all that much: reader twitter was among several to contribute links to a related story at Computer World which highlights Microsoft attorney Bonnie MacNaughton's acknowledgement that pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007.
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Submission: Microsoft announces Global Anti Piracy Day by arcticstoat (993717)
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  • Minor correction... (Score:4, Funny)

    by ivan256 (17499) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:42AM (#25453411)

    [almost everybody prefers] Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007

    Fixed that for you...

    • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xoundmind (932373) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:02AM (#25453841)
      The jokes/reality just write themselves when it comes to M$:
      Their newest product line is so sucky that no one wants to pirate it.
      Now that's an innovative strategy!

    • Even pirates don't want Vista (Score:5, Insightful)

      by elfguy (22889) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:03AM (#25453851) Homepage

      You know you have problems when even pirates don't want your software!

      • 2007 isn't that bad. The effing "x" formats are a P.I.T.A but as per usual, the next Office version is a decent incremental upgrade, which will, in due course, be adopted by the business community at large.

        If they followed the same sort of incremental, professional design philosophy with Windows, they wouldn't spend so much time having their user base frothing in hatred and rage.

        • Re:Minor correction... (Score:4, Funny)

          by theaveng (1243528) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:54AM (#25454733)

          I'm still using Office 97. I'm just a little bit behind in the times. (Or too cheap to lay-down $200 on a pointless upgrade.)

          >>>Microsoft Calls Today Global Anti-Piracy Day

          Ironically, even as I read this article, I am downloading Stargate Atlantis season 4. What I've seen so far (401-410) was crap, so I'm glad I tried it before wasting money on the stupid DVD. I guess I'm not really feeling the "spirit" of this day.

      • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by g253 (855070) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:08AM (#25453965) Homepage
        That's true. It feels strange to say this sort of things about Microsoft, especially on Slashdot, but Office 2007 is pretty decent software, and the ribbon is -dare I say it?- a clever and even innovative UI approach. (bye bye karma...)

        • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Informative)

          by JCSoRocks (1142053) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:12AM (#25454001)
          The ribbon appears to be the "next big thing" in Windows UI design. The Windows 7 screens I've seen have even included redesigned Paint and Notepad with the ribbon. This is a pretty big step considering the last time Notepad and Paint were updated was... ummm... yeah, I can't even remember. I'm not saying Paint / Notepad are going to magically make Windows good again, just that they're really pushing the ribbon.

        • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Trevin (570491) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:19AM (#25454107) Homepage

          and the ribbon is -dare I say it?- a clever and even innovative UI approachand the ribbon is -dare I say it?- a clever and even innovative UI approach.

          Would this be a good place to mention that it took me at least ten minutes to figure out what they did with the File menu so that I could convert an OOXML document someone sent me into a different file format?

          • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Txiasaeia (581598) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:21AM (#25454155)
            It took me a few minutes to get used to a mouse back in the 80s, too; now that I know how to use one, it's intuitive.

          • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Cinnaman (954100) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:24AM (#25454217)

            The problem with the ribbon is that it assumes that menus and toolbars are not a quick and easy way of finding what you want.

            • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Interesting)

              by JasterBobaMereel (1102861) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @11:34AM (#25455343)

              As in I work in IT and it took me 10 minutes to find the Save As option the first time I used the beribboned Office ...

              I use OpenOffice because I can find things on the Menus ....

            • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Blakey Rat (99501) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @12:17PM (#25456055)

              The story behind the ribbon:

              After each version of Office ships, Microsoft asks a selection of users which features they would like to see in the next version of Office. When they did this after Office 2000, a large percentage of the features users suggested were already-implemented. When they did this for Office 2003, even more already-implemented features were suggested. The conclusion was that Office isn't lacking features, but the UI is so arcane that nobody could find which features it had, or how to use them.

              That's the problem the Ribbon is intended to solve. In actuality, it removed a few features from Office (dealing with custom macro toolbars, IIRC.) I think that it's definitely a move in the right direction. It might not be right for every application, but for programs like Word and Excel that:
              1) Are used by myriads of untrained people
              2) Have craploads of features
              I think it's the right move. For something like Photoshop, point 1 doesn't apply, and for something like Notepad point 2 doesn't apply, so it's not right for every application.

      • Re:Minor correction... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mcgrew (92797) * on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:14AM (#25454051) Journal

        Once you get over the fact that a few things are in different places

        That's one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft! Why in the hell do they DO that??? How stupid do they think we are?

        Pretty stupid, I guess. They take the same damned program, move shit around, rename other shit, add fluff and eye candy and then expect us to buy the sam load of dingo kidneys all over again and...

        Hell, I guess we ARE that stupid. I mean, I have XP on my box.

        We have Offoce 2000 at work. Does Office 2007 do anything Office 2003 doesn't? Or even anything Office 2000 doesn't? What makes it worth the extra Five hundred dollars per license????

        Could this be contributing to our global economic meltdown?

      • Re:Minor correction... (Score:5, Informative)

        by CastrTroy (595695) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:18AM (#25454093) Homepage
        My major problems with office 2007 are found within outlook 2007. Firstly they took the IE HTML engine out, and replaced it with the Word HTML rendering engine, which means the HTML support is now extremely crippled. Also, when you want to print an email, the only way to bring up the print dialog is with CTRL+P. Which is fine, once you figure it out, but completely annoying before you do. The only other way to print, is to find the ultra-tiny drop down arrow where the print button is hidden, but that only prints immediately to the default printer, and doesn't let you configure any other options.

  • If it weren't for piracy (Score:5, Funny)

    by BPPG (1181851) <bppg1986@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:43AM (#25453427)

    If it weren't for piracy, there'd be a sizable amount of people that would never even try Vista.

    • Re:If it weren't for piracy (Score:5, Informative)

      by betterunixthanunix (980855) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:26AM (#25454255)
      I'm not sure who modded you funny, or why, because you make a very good point. Actually, in the absence of piracy, Windows would have a substantially smaller market share, especially in emerging economies. Microsoft has actually admitted this in the past, and made a pathetic attempt at releasing a shareware version of Windows that could run 3 processes at a time in order to compete with the pirates. Microsoft has to tread very carefully when they try to combat piracy, because the fewer pirated copies of Windows and Office people use, the more copies of Linux/BSD and OpenOffice.org/Google Docs people will use. On the other hand, if Microsoft does not make sufficient efforts to protect its trademarks (and to some degree, copyrights), it could lose them, and that would spell trouble for them too.

    • Re:If it weren't for piracy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SCHecklerX (229973) <slshdt@freefall.homeip.net> on Tuesday October 21 2008, @12:22PM (#25456167) Homepage

      Actually, if it weren't for piracy, Microsoft would never have dominated the market in the first place. People buy at work what they have used at home. I can't justify paying $500+ for software I use only when re-writing a resume every few years or so.

  • RRRRrraaaaa (Score:5, Funny)

    by sxltrex (198448) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:44AM (#25453435)

    Does that make it "Talk Like an Anti-Pirate Day?"

  • For once I agree with MS (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mcgrew (92797) * on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:44AM (#25453437) Journal

    Pirates seize Indian vessel with 13 crew members off Somalia [hindustantimes.com]

    An Indian cargo ship with 13 sailors on board heading towards Africa was hijacked by armed pirates off the northern coast of Somalia, even as suspense persisted over the fate of Indian crew members of the Hong Kong vessel MV Stolt Valor.

    Somali pirates boarded the ship which was heading to Somalia and hijacked it south of Socotra island over the weekend, an official of the International Maritime Bureau said in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday.

    The whereabouts of the ship and the fate of the crew members was not known as the maritime bureau received the distress report from a third party on Monday.

    "We are still verifying the time and date of attack," the official said.

    The hijack pushed the number of attacks by pirates this year in Somali coast to 74. A total of 30 ships have been hijacked and 10 remain in the hands of the pirates along with nearly 200 crew members.

    A concerned Indian Government has dispatched a powerful stealth warship to the area as momentum has been growing for coordinated international response to the spate of hijacking being unleashed by Somali pirates using speed boats.

    So I agree, piracy is a terrible problem. Our hearts go out to the families of the missing sailors.

    However, I would think that Microsoft would be more concerned with copyright infringement that piracy. Are they planning an anti-copyright infringement day? September 19th [wikipedia.org] might be appropriate.

    • Damn you. You beat me to it [slashdot.org]!

      To be serious for a moment, does anyone else feel that Microsoft's crusade on software piracy is simply insensitive in the recent wake of high seas piracy? A lot of good men and women are out there getting killed just so companies like Microsoft can deliver their product around the world. Rather than displaying their global conscience and supporting the cause of defeating real piracy, they're worried about a bunch of 12 year olds who harmlessly steal software for kicks! Meanwhile, the vast majority of consumers who use Windows have actually paid for Windows. Repeatedly.

      But that's not good enough for Microsoft, is it? They want to squeeze blood from a stone. Get every last nickel out of those horrible people who miscounted their licenses by one, or the people who load Linux/BSD/Solaris/Plan9 on their machines. (Because, obviously, anyone using Linux is ACTUALLY pirating Windows!)

      You know what? I can't bring myself to care, Microsoft. In fact, I hope your company BURNS for those practices.

    • Re:For once I agree with MS (Score:4, Funny)

      by ajs (35943) <ajs@nOspam.ajs.com> on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:14AM (#25454043) Homepage Journal

      I think you got it wrong. They're talking about the idea of privateering. They're opposed to hiring pirates as mercenaries to fight other countries by proxy. I, for one, am glad to see Microsoft take a stand on this serious issue! In fact, I'm going to go give out duplicated copies of Windows XP to all my friends to show my support!

  • and... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dzimas (547818) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:45AM (#25453457)
    I'm declaring today "Anti Microsoft Day." There. We're even.

  • ...invest heavily in warships to help protect our shipping lanes. Nothing could be a better use of their money than helping stop the violence inherent in piracy on the high-seas. Already, many American warships are in stand-off confrontations with merchies taken over by pirates. I--

    Sorry, what? This is about software? How Microsoft is concerned about companies who are missing one or two licenses out of 5,000 or 12 year old kids bragging that they got XP off of I13|<p1R4Cy.com? Pfff. In that case, screw 'em.

  • Working so far (for me). (Score:5, Funny)

    by Piranhaa (672441) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:45AM (#25453471)

    I pledge I will not pirate anything... today

  • sweet (Score:5, Funny)

    by nomadic (141991) <nomadicworld@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:46AM (#25453487) Homepage
    Know my favorite part of Anti-Piracy Days? The parades. I mean, the parties are nice, and seeing the kids put out the Anti-Piracy decorations, but the parades are what are really great.

  • Prevent Windows piracy: Use Linux instead!

  • Excellent initiative Microsoft! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by conner_bw (120497) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:48AM (#25453533) Homepage Journal

    And I'd like to remind everyone that the easiest way to combat piracy is by using open source software instead of Microsoft/Apple products whenever possible.

    It's just like pirating; freedom minus the eye patch.

  • Really Sad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Archangel Michael (180766) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:49AM (#25453545) Journal

    pirates prefer Windows XP over Vista and Office 2003 over 2007

    Its really sad when even Pirates don't like your crap. That's like making a movie which even the pirates don't pirate.

    Think about it, people who can get it for free, don't want it, even as it is free. This is not boding well for Microsoft.

  • Jumping on the Bandwagon (Score:5, Funny)

    by PinkyDead (862370) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:49AM (#25453551) Journal

    After the success of last month's "Talk Like A Pirate Day", this is just Microsoft just trying to cash in on the whole pirate thing.

    Parents can't be expected to shell out for every single pirate related holiday. Enough is enough.

    Anyway, don't Microsoft already have April 1st.

  • I pledge... (Score:5, Funny)

    by neowolf (173735) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:51AM (#25453591)

    ...that I will not pirate Vista. Ever.

  • FTFAFY (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hognoxious (631665) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:55AM (#25453669) Homepage Journal
    TFA

    reader twitter was among several to contribute links to a related story

    Should read:

    several readers, all of whom were twitter, contributed links to a related story.

  • > raise awareness of the damage to software innovation that Microsoft says is caused by piracy.

    Which fades into insignificance when compared to the damage to software innovation caused by Microsoft !

  • Only one day? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr_Icon (124425) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @10:04AM (#25453867) Homepage

    In contrast, the rest of the world celebrates the remaining 364 piracy days.

  • REDMOND, Indian Ocean, Monday - Microsoft has announced that today is "Global Anti-Piracy Day," [today.com] with the aim to raise awareness of the damage to software innovation caused by robbery and murder on the high seas.

    "Robbery, rape and brutal murder on the high seas is just like people copying that floppy," sobbed billionaire Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "You wouldn't steal a patented software process, why would you steal a cargo ship?"

    Piracy off the coast of Somalia has made these the most dangerous waters for software development in the world. The pirates use hacked zombie PCs, sometimes impounding codebases and programming staff at the point of their Heckler & Koch MP3s and demanding warez before they are released.

    A famous attack late last year against one luxury system was foiled when the crew scared the pirates off with the Righteous Mathematical Stentor, an ear-splitting acoustic device developed in Massachusetts as a "non-lethal" free software advocacy weapon.

    Somali clan leaders have agreed to end over two decades of Unix wars in the country and have made attempts to address the piracy problem. But the tremendous lawlessness off the long eastern Somali coastline reflects the difficulty of controlling the flow of information on the Internet.

    In one breakthrough, pirate chiefs have resolved that they will never pirate Windows Vista or Office 2007. "Not even with your dick."

    • Re:Can they do that? (Score:5, Funny)

      by cosmocain (1060326) on Tuesday October 21 2008, @09:55AM (#25453671)
      Why not? You can do that, too. Just stroll around and tell everybody you meet that today's...

      - "Think of the children"-day,
      - "Bad car analogy"-day,
      - "Robotic overlord"-day,
      - "Natalie Portman"-day,
      - "In Soviet russia"-day,
      - "Insensitive clod"-day,
      - "Goatse"-day,
      etc...

      The fact that nobody'll listen to you will just make you feel like MS today. But if they don't care - why should you?

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