Taiwan Group Responsible For 90% of MSFT Piracy 229
Stony Stevenson writes "Microsoft claims that a small group led by a recently jailed Taiwanese man was the source of almost all high-quality pirated copies of its software up until his arrest in 2004. The claim suggests that Microsoft practically wiped out commercial piracy of its products with the arrest of Huang Jer-sheng, the owner of Taiwan-based software distributor Maximus Technology. Microsoft announced today that Huang and his associates. who were all recently sentenced to jail time, had been responsible for the 'production and distribution of more than 90 percent of the high-quality counterfeit Microsoft software products either seized by law enforcement or test-purchased around the world.'"
Nightline:Thieves are amoung us. (Score:4, Interesting)
90% + 90% + 90%... Do they actually sell anything? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I wonder:
A - Is it 90% of the 10% left from the previous "pirate" operation?
So, after three or four captures, it becomes clear they are actually selling legally less than 1/100 of a single copy.
B - Are the "pirates" stealing copies from other "pirates" and repitating them?
So, 10% of the copies would be legally sold and 90% would reach the final clients after being "pirated" about twenty times.
Re:Good show, but hardly enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Just as a matter of interest, do they pirate things like Linux distros? I can see that people might sell convincing fakes of Redhat boxed distros, but I don't know if they'd sell. Perhaps if someone was getting what they thought was a support contract that turned out to be bogus?
Re: as opposed to casual piracy, where no money tr (Score:5, Interesting)
In the cases you give I am deprived of the product which is "pirated". Copying does not deprive the source of the product. You are making a very very strange comparison between copying and theft.
Let me put it this way ... if someone can take my paycheck, and leave me with exactly every cent in that paycheck, then they are welcome to it and I invite everyone to do the same.
not that I've ever encountered pirated software mind you
Re:Why copy protection? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is 90% of professional piracy, therefore:
1) There are other vendors (see the other 10%), who really probably can expand to fill the spaces - ESPECIALLY since if these guys were apprehended so long ago there is a fine vista market ready for targetting. If you've already managed to circumvent the protection then you're only going to be limited by distribution and manufacture, which is hardly that big a hurdle
2) 90% of HIGH QUALITY piracy, NOT 90% of torrent downloaders and casual pirates. WGA, supposedly, protects against this, which is also a huge problem
Just getting pissy with copy protection is hardly worthy of mod points.
Nature Abhors A Vacuum (Score:4, Interesting)
Also been in Mexico City where street vendors sell about any software title on the planet - some slick copies, some shoddy.
And I doubt the 90% figure. Looks and smells like some marketing drone pulled it out of his @ss.
Re:quantifying the unquantifable! (Score:3, Interesting)
Well Taiwan accounts e.g. for over 80% of the world's laptop production (at least that's what they claim here [taiwanembassy.org] - table in German only, but should be easy to read). So it would make sense that a lot of the industrial copying of software would be there, too.
Re:Good show, but hardly enough (Score:5, Interesting)
Criminal like hell. Nothing compared to copy some software where both parties know it.
>>
This appears to be the Slashdot consensus morality:
Make a perfectly functional copy, upload it to Pirate Bay, charge for advertising: No problem.
Make a perfectly functional copy, sell it on a CD-R, charge $1 for it: Very little problem.
Make a perfectly functional copy, sell it on a CD which looks real, charge $100 for it: Criminal like hell.
It would appear, on the basis of available evidence, that the Slashdot consensus doesn't give two bits about IP rights as applied to software, but thinks they are really, really important when applied to the distinctive branding on cardboard boxes. I suppose Microsoft should have invested more in Pretty Box Rights Management? It would probably make them more popular around here.
Re:High quality? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:High quality? (Score:4, Interesting)
I can rescue, troubleshoot, surf with, and easily install from a variety of live Linux CDs.
The tools are there to build something similar:
http://www.911cd.net/forums/ [911cd.net]
using Windows PE exist, but MSFT doesn't bother. Too bad, really. It would make user lives easier.
Re:high-quality (Score:3, Interesting)
One of my professors bought a copy of MATLAB to use for solving some filtering equations. (He taught the DSP courses) He installed the program on his laptop, but whenever he wasn't using his internet access, he couldn't use MATLAB correctly. I'm not sure why.
He finally just installed a pirated version and it worked flawlessly.
Technically, he wasn't pirating the software either, since he paid for a full licence. They weren't cheap, either. It runs about $25k for a full version of MATLAB.