Microsoft Files a Copyright Infringement Lawsuit For Activating Pirated Software 268
First time accepted submitter Esra Erimez writes Microsoft has filed a complaint at a federal court in Washington accusing person(s) behind an AT&T subscription of activating various pirated copies of Windows 7 and Office 10. The account was identified by Microsoft's in-house cyberforensics team based on suspicious "activation patterns." Despite being one of the most pirated software vendors in the world, Microsoft doesn't have a long track record of cracking down on individual pirates. From the descriptions used in the complaint it seems likely that the target is not an average user, but someone who sells computers containing pirated software.
Creators wishing to control their creations... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't think there will be much outrage from people who understand that back-alley shops stay open by ripping off everyone, including their customers.
It's how they stay in business, since they obviously don't have the skills to do business legitimately.
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Interesting that TFA talks about an activation key likely misused/abused.
I'm sure the shop has the skills to operate legitimately. An OEM version of Windows mainly requires a sticker to be peeled from the back of the DVD case and slapped onto the machine, and that one OEM copy of Windows goes out per machine sold. Not rocket science. Here in the US, $130 is the "retail" charge for an OEM copy.
IMHO, this is a non-issue.
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This all chan
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$130? I've been getting legit OEM copies from Newegg for $99 with purchase of a mouse or keyboard. Paying $130 is insane and dumb for anyone that does not need the ability to join a domain.
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Yup. I've seen more than my fair share of people with computers stuffed to the socks. "So you say this laptop loaded with Windows 7 Ultimate, MS-Office Pro and Photoshop only cost you $300. Hmmm..."
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We had one guy like that around the turn of the century. He'd "custom-build" computers loaded to the gills. The problem was he knew nothing about computers. All of a sudden he's complaining because "AMD CPUs are crap. None of them boot into Windows." He was booting the computer to test it before adding the CPU fan, and those Thunderbirds ran hot.
Someone told him to ask me what was wrong, and what he could do to fix it, and I said "Concrats, you now own a very very fast 16-bit DOS machine. Enjoy DOOM".
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Emphasis mine.
Sent from my pirated copy of FreeDOS.
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The old idea fallacy (Score:2)
Any attempt to oppose an idea on the grounds, that it is "too old", must demonstrate, how the time has changed the argument. See also, the "Appeal to novelty" fallacy [wikipedia.org].
The possible exceptions are arguments over things, which are illogical by their very nature — such as clothing- or hair-styles — the domain, where, I believe, the very notion of "this so yesterdayish" originated.
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These days, we have high quality software already made, And the open source revolution has shown us that it is poppycock, the claim that you need the proceeds of extortionate licensing fees in order to build high quality software.
Re:Creators wishing to control their creations... (Score:5, Informative)
Why? If you want to use Software that is not free, you're supposed to pay for it.
The only thing that really pisses me off is that when they think you had to reinstall your copy a few too many time you become a frequent participant on their Indian call-in show...
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This sounds just as — indeed, indistinguishably — logical to me as "If you want to listen to music that is not free, you're supposed to pay for it". Or "If you want to watch a movie that is not free, you're supposed to pay for it."
And yet, the prevailing opinion on /. remains, that creators wishing to control their creations (or sell such control to others) simply shows them to be greedy and their attempts —
Re:Creators wishing to control their creations... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's one thing to pay for a movie if I want to watch it. That's pretty much the way it should be, you create something, you get compensated for me using it.
It's another thing if I pay for the movie and then have to jump through additional hoops to watch it, and I can only watch it the way the creator wants me to. If I pay for something, I expect to be able to use it. As I please. Not as its creator pleases.
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I think the breakdown between reasonable parties on difference sides of the discussion is about what "buying a movie" means.
Many of us would prefer to own, perpetually, a copy of the movie which we could use freely in any non-public performance forever without additional necessary license. Some of us, OTOH, are happy to rent a movie, like we do with a lot of digital downloads.
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It's one thing to pay for a movie if I want to watch it. That's pretty much the way it should be, you create something, you get compensated for me using it.
It's another thing if I pay for the movie and then have to jump through additional hoops to watch it, and I can only watch it the way the creator wants me to. If I pay for something, I expect to be able to use it. As I please. Not as its creator pleases.
Simple solution - don't use it. Problem solved.
Your movie analogy - sitting in a theatre watching ads before the movie is part of the "experience"; you don't get to watch it your way.
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I can choose to enter the movie theater just as the ads are over...
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I can choose to enter the movie theater just as the ads are over...
And getting a crappy seat. Is that how you want to watch a movie?
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crappy seat? we have reserved seats here. I get to eject the fool that is sitting in my seat.
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Why not? Why should the creator not be able to impose any restrictions they damn please? As long as they aren't in a position to prevent you from rejecting their entire creation, they ought to be able to attach whatever strings they want. If you don't like the software/movie/song enough to accept the terms, you remain free to act as if it was never written...
I, for example, strongly dislike Microsoft software
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Why not? Why should the creator not be able to impose any restrictions they damn please? As long as they aren't in a position to prevent you from rejecting their entire creation, they ought to be able to attach whatever strings they want.
Many countries have laws preventing unreasonable contracts, and judges that will often side with the consumer when a contract is intentionally misleading etc. These terms would need to be made very clear, and the price reduced too.
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And the price needs reduced? Wha?
I agree, completely, that a content producer should disclose the full terms of the sale, or license, or viewing/screening/performance.
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Why not? Why should the creator not be able to impose any restrictions they damn please?
If that those restrictions are clear before I buy, they should be able to impose them. But if I don't find out about the 20 minutes of unskippable commercials, until after I insert by purchased DVD, then I have the moral justification to watch a few pirated movies from the same studio to get even.
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You have the moral justification to return the film unwatched.
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The Canadian laws say that a content provider (copyright holder) is only allowed to sue me for the value of the lost products (lost sales).
Since I can show a legally purchased dvd, there is no loss. No charges will ever stand up in court. We also have the right to own dvd copyright protection removal software.
This is my way of using what I bought the way I want to. I totally agree w
Re:Creators wishing to control their creations... (Score:5, Informative)
Why not? Why should the creator not be able to impose any restrictions they damn please?
Largely because of the first-sale doctrine [wikipedia.org], which codifies property rights sanity: if you sell me something, it is now mine, not yours. I can do whatever I want with it. Use my spatula as a screwdriver? Use a thermos bottle for a hammer? Watch scenes in a movie out of order? It's none of your business. I bought it. It is now my property, and I'm free to do with it as I please.
(Averting pedantry: of course that doesn't involve violating copyright. Straw men will be ignored.)
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And I honestly don't think Microsoft are trying to control what you do with their software. At least, I've never seen anything like that. All the licensing stuff is about proving you actually did buy it, and thus proving that the first sale doctrine even applies. It's a nuisance for sure, but I'm not sure what the alternative is. That said, as a 20+ year user of their products I've had to call for a license activation precisely once and it took maybe 60 seconds. I can live with that.
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Why should the creator not be able to impose any restrictions they damn please?
Why should the rest of us aid them in doing so? E.g. by conferring upon them some sort of legal rights that pertain to how the work is used by others.
While I think it could potentially be beneficial for the public to grant rights to authors, it's surely not always beneficial under every circumstance, and every permutation of works and rights.
And if the author doesn't like the terms under which the public might deign to give them rights, they're free to not create the work.
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Yet I don't. Nobody makes me pay for the FM radios stations, and I change to another when the commercials come on. Same goes to TV when they play movies. I don't pay a dime and I leave for the kitchen or use the computer when ad's come on.
Therefore I meet the requirements of "dirty rotten pirate"
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I've never run up against it. I activated about two dozen copies of education-licensed versions of Office 2007 a few years ago, and the auto-activation failed after the first install. After that, I had to call a 1-800 number, give an automated service the installation key and it barfed out an activation key... over and over again.
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You don't get to "control" your creations. That's not what COPYright law is about. It's about COPYing. "Control" is something entirely else beyond the scope and intent of intellectual property laws (at least in the US).
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Distinction without difference. Thanks for playing.
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Bullshit. Devising a counterexample is so utterly trivial that I leave it as an exercise for the reader.
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You are not writing a textbook (which your students will be compelled to buy) here, professor.
Do put your arguments forth yourself, or get out. Put up or shut up, so to speak.
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Actually that would probably go under derivative works since you could sell those rights. The key thing about moral rights is that in most jurisdictions you can't sign them away. For example say that you sell the rights to a film based on your book, but they totally change the story to the point it violates your artistic integrity then in Europe you have a good chance of getting it stopped. Or someone buys the rights to a song from you and use it in nazi propaganda or rape porn or whatever, basically it's a
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Similarly, I find the continual extension of copyright terms pushed by Disney, et al, exceedingly hypocritical - Disney built its business from freely copying the works of others - the Bros. Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Mark Twain, etc. Now, they want to hold our c
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Van Gogo, Rembrandt, and their contemporaries have been dead for quite a while, and copyright was much more limited (or non-existent) then.
Here's another limitation of fair use [gigaom.com] - you can't resell anything covered by copyright that you've imported from elsewhere..
here you go [google.com]
The court in this case held that it was against the law to strip the individual pictures from a book and, in effect, create derivative works.
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The cited case is nuanced - it hinges on derivative works - "As we have previously concluded that appellant's tile-preparing process results in derivative works and as the exclusive right to prepare derivative works belongs to the copyright holder, the "first sale" doctrine does not bar the appellees' copyright infringement claims."
The defendant was placing the original printed images on ceramic tiles,
Law (Score:2)
Actually, there' something called "moral rights" in copyright law that allows the copyright holder to prevent you from, for example, buying an art book with a bunch of nice pictures in it, cutting out and framing all the pictures, and reselling the framed pictures.
I doubt that very much. Show me a case which broadly prohibits that - not some narrower interpretation tenuously connected. I don't care if the book publisher gets in trouble if I cut up the book, I signed no such agreement when I bought it off the discount rack at B&N.
No, you probably didn't, but it's a copyright law, not a contract. You are obligated to obey the law even if you didn't agree to it.
As to show you a case, the Ninth Circuit has held for Parent in a related fact-pattern, while the seventh circuit has sided more with you, so it depends where in the United States you are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
In addition, the parent was talking about moral rights, which are more of a European thing. So you'd have to check their law.
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Creators have some natural control over their creations, which they could theoretically maintain indefinitely by keeping whatever they had created to themselves, and never allowing anyone else to see it in the first place. Barring independent invention, it's a fairly natural exclusivity that copyright is simply an extension of, and which coincidentally encourages a creator to publish, as long as society abides by the social contract that they will respect the creator's intentions.
Care to take a guess ho
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Care to take a guess how many people would willfully publish their stuff if everything that they published had to become public domain?
Well, that's how it operated in the US from 1790 through to the end of 1977. Turns out that relatively few published works were copyrighted. Further, since there was a renewal term (that is, the copyright would be good for an additional number of years if you re-upped in a timely fashion) we also know that most authors of copyrighted works didn't bother to get a renewal, and let their works enter the public domain sooner than they had to.
It worked fine. We got great literature and the golden age of Hollywoo
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Let's have some outrage over creators seeking to, gasp, control their creations — and be paid for their use.
More like... creators getting angry that the business model they've created is basically impossible to control, yet they expect the judicial system do it for them.
Google, Apple and just about every other OS in the world has already realized trying to charge for an OS is impossible and have moved on... This is just Microsoft providing more evidence that they're a dinosaur left over from the 80s. What are they going to do next? Try and ban Color copiers because they can be used to circumvent their copyright p
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You want to "control your creation — and be paid for it's use"
Nope, no outrage here
You want to create something that has no function that is not available in something else which is available for free AND you want to get paid a whole bunch of money for it...
Still no outrage. Not my problem, I'll just use the free thing and ignore you.
You somehow manage to get most of the world using your expensive thing, I now need to use that expensive thing myself because everyone else is and I can't read their stu
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The paper wall of the property deed works just fine — in a reasonably law-obedient society — to hold squatters outside of one's house. I don't see, why you'd dismiss the "I thought of it first" paper wall as any less practical.
Also:
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Physical property is naturally constrained. There's only one person who can occupy a given space, or own a particular thing. If someone else occupies that space, or steals the thing, then the original owner no longer has it.
"Intellectual property" is completely differe
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Negative, the originator still has the right to decide to distribute, or not.
What you have taken from them is a governmentally enforced monopoly of a thought.
-Rick
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If you think that allowing an entity control an idea just simply because they "though of it first" is practical solution simply imagine a world where this is the case for everything. The wheel, fire screws, language ... we would go crazy trying to attribute value to people. In fact since every idea is based on others, giving the person who thought of it first indefinite control means you will stifle new ideas. Ok patents have a limited life, but as the pace of technology increases, the length of a patients
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Well, if that's how you feel, why didn't you buy a "barebone" computer to use with free software? If you hate (on) Microsoft so much, why do you use their software at all? I don't...
Are they? Well, why do you listen/watch their wares then? Just pretend, they do not exist — go to a theater, read a book...
No, you don't want that — you want to keep enjoying other people's works, while badmouthing them for being "greedy".
For the re
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If you hate (on) Microsoft so much, why do you use their software at all? I don't...
Because their OS software is pretty much the industry standard. I don't have time to tool around 30 hours just to maybe get my OS working with my hard/software. How's your systemd btw?
No, you don't want that — you want to keep enjoying other people's works, while badmouthing them for being "greedy".
Who says that? I go to the movies once in a while and I pay. I don't download movies to avoid going to the cinema. I've paid for music CD's. I don't think I should pay AGAIN for an MP3 of a song I already own on CD just because I'm too lazy to look for it through my CD's and rip it myself, and I really don't think I should pay
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I bought a computer that comes with shitty Windows 8 installed. I paid the "Microsoft Tax" at the OEM level.
If you don't want it then get a refund for it, there is lots of documentation on the net about how to go about this.
Fucking excuse me if I prefer Win 7 - which I also paid an OEM license for 5 years ago.
So now you're discovering the difference between and OEM license and a retail license.
Wait you want me to pay a THIRD time?
Well you can get a refund on the first OEM charge so that brings it to 2 times. And if you had the forethought to buy a retail copy instead of an OEM you could still use that license, though maybe 2 OEM copies is cheaper than a retail? If so then the fact that you pay twice is irrelevant.
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Obviously the summary was written by an employee of a Microsoft affiliated call center in Mumbai...
"Sir, I am calling about your AT&T subscription. Your computer has been identified as homing a virus. For a small fee we can remove these virus."
Chinese computers come this way (Score:5, Informative)
At any house brand computer store in China the computers come windows installed and activated but no disks. If you insist on an install disk the price for it is, amazingly, the same as buying windows retail. The whole activation system is fundamentally flawed, but the question is, how to make it 1) less of a pain for legit users and 2) harder for pirates? These two goals seem exclusive, alas.
Re:Chinese computers come this way (Score:4, Insightful)
The only sensible way I can think of is adding some value to legit copies that is unavailable with the illegal ones. Which is admittedly hard for something like an OS where, say, free lessons or a printed manual aren't such great deal makers and breakers.
Everything else we've seen in the area of copy protection usually does more to piss off the legit customer than to thwart the illegal copier.
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adding some physical value to legit copies
FTFY.
Physical resources are scarce. Virtual resources are infinite. People selling virtual goods have all been obsoleted since personal computers became ubiquitous. You see it everywhere, from software to entertainment to information. It's a matter of waiting for society to catch up.
There is still value in some of these things, just not directly via sales.
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You might not have noticed but China got extremely angry when Microsoft discontinued support for XP. I believe one of the reasons for this was how easy it was to pirate XP versus newer versions. The XP activation system had been thoruoughly cracked making it trivial to sell computers with XP but no license. Newer versions do not suffer this issue and as a result China's upper brass realized they might have to start paying for windows.
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windows 7 is dramatically easier to pirate than XP. SLIC activation is trivial to fake.
Thanks for the TorrentFreak link... (Score:3)
...that should be easy to view at work.
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TorrentFreak is a news site, and one of the few that actually does journalism on copyright issues without a blatant bias. It is not a pro-piracy site, it does not host any pirated content. I'm not sure what the problem is, other than the word 'torrent' in the url?
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Oh god. For a minute I thought you were serious.
Is this a mistake? (Score:2)
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I'm sure this has been fixed - or I hope it has, but when I was imaging a lab at a university they had a license server. The admin had just been clicking next on all the automated activtions the available license count went into negative numbers without any sort of alert or warning. I guess maybe it's not a bug, but perhaps a way for MS to come in a few months later and charge a bunch of money because the admin forgot to de-activate the licenses before re-imaging.
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They used the wrong windows (Score:4, Interesting)
The windows 7 I installed was pre-activated when I downloaded it from the Pirate Bay. Much easier. I don't know if I could legally downgrade from the windows 8 the system had preinstalled but piracy was so easy that I didn't bother to find out.
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Even those who want a free (of charge) operating system wont touch it, they would rather pirate Windows because Windows is a better desktop computer operating system.
Now that games are starting to actually come out for Linux on somewhat frequent occasion, at least in part thanks to Valve's influence, I only need to run some automotive stuff that I can run on old windows in a virtual machine. So, thanks to vmware player, I can run Linux on the metal. I've even got an OEM XP sticker on my PC case, just barely legible, so I don't have to use it without paying.
What you say was highly accurate until recently, however. Some people are just still suffering from severe lock-in
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Not quite true, I do run Linux servers on that windows 7 machine with VirtualBox.
They say it is "completely anonymous" (Score:5, Interesting)
When you activate by phone the IVR states:
"Note: Microsoft Product Activation is completely anonymous; therefore, no personal information is collected. The entire activation process will take about 5 minutes."
Not just Individual. (Score:2)
Such lawsuits are not rare - usually done by BSA (Score:2)
As I understand it, the BSA is largely owned, and controlled by MS.
In deference to the article's claim that "Despite being one of the most pirated software vendors in the world, Microsoft doesn't have a long track record of cracking down on individual pirates."
MS has a very long record of such lawsuits, MS just does not file the lawsuits directly.
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Are you high?
What do you think will happen if everyone that makes software requires you to plug in some stupid dongle to make it work? Let's even assume they don't have any nasty quirks where they try to kick each other off or where the software identifies the wrong dongle as "its" and, due to the dongle of course giving the wrong answer, locking up. But where the hell do you think I should plug in a few dozen dongles?
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Don't throw me straight lines...you know where to plug the dongles.
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Ummmm... why'd you want straight lines, with these you wouldn't know what to do with the dongle again...
Re:Courts should punish intentional facilitation (Score:4, Funny)
I think there's a 25 or 30 port USB hub up in the new Slashdot Deals section
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Slashcode dropped my sarcasm tags.....
There is an implied eye rolling in the above post.
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Oh great. Just to use software I should buy something that's expensive as fuck and uses more power than the rest of the rig?
Seriously, if that became the norm, I'd break out the disasm again. Not to spread the software, just to use what I fucking PAID FOR! Don't piss off your paying customer, go after the illegal copier instead, dammit!
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CAD tool vendors liked dongles back in the days that PCs has parallel ports. OrCad for instance.
It didn't take long before customers started telling them to quit with the dongles or they would shop elsewhere. And so the rise of FlexLM and spoofed MAC addresses.
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I remember those dongles. Easy to break, messed with the printers far too many times, easy to crack... in general it proved to be more a nuisance to the legit customer than anyone trying to rip the software for free.
And hence again my plea: Do NOT piss off your paying customer in your quest to stop copying. If anything, it makes people pissed enough to make them stop buying and start copying. Because it usually means that it's EASIER to use the copied and cracked software.
It really boggles the mind.
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We also had 4 AVID workstation running off of one dongle at Comcast back then. a printer switch was all we needed. going to load or render? flip the switch to your machine as that is the only times it checked for the dongle.
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But where the hell do you think I should plug in a few dozen dongles?
Joystick port on a Commodore 64. I had a piece of software from -- OMG! 30 years ago! -- that required a dongle to be plugged into the 9-pin joystick port. The modern day version would be a special USB stick. You can get a USB hub if you need more places to stick your dongles in.
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No need for a USB port. I have a wife for that sort of thing.
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If they're built right, you daisy chain them. Back in the Good Old Days before USB, dongles were plugged into the printer port and each one had another parallel port on the back. That way, you could have as many dongles as you needed plugged in, and still use your printer. No reason you couldn't do that today, including having the last item in the chain being your USB printer.
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Yeah, We all need dozens of security dongles for all the various copyrighted software we use. And then you're outta luck when the new puppy gets ahold of one of your dongles and chews it up because it can't be bothered to play with the chew toy you spent good money on....
Re:Courts should punish intentional facilitation (Score:5, Funny)
That's what you get for adopting a subversive open source zealot dog. I bet you named him "stallman".
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Or you could use software activation, as other software companies do? As Microsoft does? Because Windows 7 and Office 2010 activation were certainly put there to intentionally facilitat
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“As part of its cyberforensic methods, Microsoft analyzes product key activation data voluntarily provided by users when they activate Microsoft software, including the IP address from which a given product key is activated”
In other words, Microsoft Windows is bugged and phones home ...
And how do you suppose they are going to activate the product over the internet if you don't provide them a product key and an IP address with which to communicate with you?
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The BSA does not deny this sort of activity, they brag about it.
At least that was true the last time I visited their website.