Microsoft Tempts Software Pirates With 50 Percent Discount On Office (theverge.com) 76
In a bold bid to turn digital crooks away from a life of crime, Microsoft is offering a 50 percent discount on its Office suite to some people using pirated versions. The Verge reports: Ghacks reports that a new message in the Office ribbon bar is appearing on pirated Office apps, tempting people with a 50 percent discount on a genuine Microsoft 365 subscription. The message links to an official Microsoft website that claims "pirated software exposes your PC to security threats." Microsoft warns Office pirates that they run the risk of running into viruses, malware, data loss, identify theft, and the inability to receive critical updates. The discount brings the price of a Microsoft 365 Family subscription down to just $49.99 for the first year, or $34.99 for a year of Microsoft 365 Personal.
so... what are they telling me to do? (Score:3)
So if I want half off, they're telling me to go pirate it, run updates, and then wait for them to send me a 50% off coupon? got it, thanks!
Re:so... what are they telling me to do? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: so... what are they telling me to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
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The latest libreoffice cannot write a single doc or docx file without a million screwups, and has cost me hours and hours of wasted effort. If you have the bucks (I don't) just get the evil MS's product.
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Re:so... what are they telling me to do? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:so... what are they telling me to do? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Piracy increases the cost to the consumer!"
*Furiously discounts to compete with Pirates*
The stupidest lie in all of the whole piracy fight was the idea that somehow the invisible hand of the market takes a vacation when evil pirates are around. No, the supply demand equilibrium still applies. Pirates increase supply, demand remains relatively innelastic. Prices go down.
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I'm still using Photoshop CS2 which Adobe gave away for free one time.
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Nevergonnagiveyouup.mp3.exe
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I think the biggest vindication of the idea that piracy reduces the cost to the consumer was microsofts hardcore discounting in asia to fight piracy. After a decade of telling everyone that piracy makes windows more expensive, they made windows much cheaper , because of piracy. And I strongly suspect the drastic price drops and straight up give-aways of licenses that surrounded windows 10 had a LOT to do with trying to compete with piracy.
Re: so... what are they telling me to do? (Score:2)
Subscriptions... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you pirate software, guess what...you own it. When you could just buy what you wanted--once--a deal like this would have once been tempting.
But these days you pay forever. As soon as Microsoft can get away with it they will charge monthly subscription fees for the OS itself. Businesses with volume licenses are already in this scenario, and their 'rented clouds' are just another step closer to this.
Fuck that.
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Almost everything is rented these days. You've already noticed that your music and video and games are subscription items. Your insurance, utilities and communication are subscription items.
What about 'real' things? You can pretend your phone is yours until the warranty expires or you fail to make the payment, then you're on your own. Many people have long leased their cars while others swap cars every few years and never pay one off. Your TV depends on software that you must pay to update on demand; failur
Re: Subscriptions... (Score:2)
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Not true. Your choices matter. If you and others choose services that only allow subscriptions, then it is only your fault. I buy my music from https://ie.7digital.com/ [7digital.com] . They offer MP3 and FLAC downloads.
For computer games you have GOG. "GOG.com is a digital distribution platform with a curated selection of games, a "you buy it, you own it" philosophy, and utmost care about
Re: Subscriptions... (Score:2)
Re: Subscriptions... (Score:2)
As penny arcade just posted, this might be a good use case for NFTs. Now we can sell software on the blockchain but also transfer ownership.
Blows the whole argument that you can still keep the software and that it's hard to transfer etc. out of the water. It's pretty much the only use case that makes sense on a global scale.
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You only have to continually pay for volume licenses if you get that type of license. There are perpetual volume licenses where you pay once and can use the software forever. I guess if you reinstall the software constantly you can run into a problem but otherwise there is enough leniency in perpetual volume licenses that you can reinstall several times without running into licensing problems.
Such a bargain! (Score:2)
But it keeps working? (Score:2)
If the app (and presumably MS) knows it's a pirated copy, why doesn't it just shut down / stop working? Isn't the how "license management" is suppose to work? I mean, otherwise "stealing" a copy seems like a good way to get a 50% discount. Unless it's a standalone vs subscription thing. Even then, but it keeps working?
But I like where this is going... Steal something, then return it for a 50% discount -- and no jail time.
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Such "license management" schemes are inherently user-hostile. There have been countless instances where such systems false positive and cause disruption to paying customers.
Intentionally refusing to work and demanding that you pay is pretty insulting...
If the software stores data in a proprietary format that's even worse, because it's deliberately preventing you from accessing your own data. It's basically ransomware.
There are countless instances where someone has bought the software but for whatever reaso
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"Such 'license management' schemes are inherently user-hostile. There have been countless instances where such systems false positive and cause disruption to paying customers."
I worked for a company that sold large complex hardware system with software. Some of the software had licensing with software keys, etc. About 50% of the calls we received were licensing software problems. The licensing ended up configured wrong, the license was in the wrong place, etc. It was a major pain.
Some of the software wa
Re: But it keeps working? (Score:2)
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That's not the licensing system, that's an account for online services which is slightly different.
Something is clearly wrong however, i have several apple devices which never force me to keep logging in. Perhaps someone is trying to brute force your account, which is triggering a stupid account lockout process or something along those lines?
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One of the huge benefits of FOSS.
You don't necessarily own it, but you do get a license to use it in its current form for, essentially, forever.
Why more people don't see the value in this is beyond me.
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But I like where this is going... Steal something, then return it for a 50% discount -- and no jail time.
Except that the thing you "stole" has more value in that you can keep using it for however long you want, although you may have to put it onto a machine not connected to the internet. The thing they're giving you at a "discount" saves files to the cloud by default - you have to make an extra effort to save them locally. And you HAVE to connect it to the internet at least once a month, or the software won't work.
Just say "no" to Microsoft - install Libre Office instead. Or, pirate Office and say "fuck you" t
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What's LibreOffice's turnaround time for compatibility when Microsoft does shit like this ?
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Criminals stealing from one another cause a LOT of bloodshed throughout the Western Hemisphere. When there is no rule of law, violence tends to take its place.
Not trying to judge anyone. But I'd just as soon not be one of them. Especially since for my needs at least there is a better and more ethical option.
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Because doing so means you haven't cracked it properly.
Crackers trying to get software to work don't test everything - they just run the software, and if it complains about piracy and stops r
"Tempting message" (Score:1)
OpenOffice (Score:4)
It's good enough.
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Exactly. If MS was concerned genuinely about viruses on your computer, they wouldn't give you a "just $49.99" message, they would say, "we know money is tight, use libre office until you want to buy legitimately".
I think libre office has far fewer issues, is faster, and doesn't break csv.
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I think libre office has far fewer issues, is faster, and doesn't break csv.
I use LibreOffice more than M$ office but the idea that it's faster is silly. It often takes minutes for Calc to launch, let alone to do anything. And then the interface is crap compared to Excel. Just moving around fields and entering data is better in Excel.
Re: OpenOffice (Score:2)
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Huh. It only takes seconds for me, albeit on a decent machine with an SSD.
I'm pretty sure there are ways to preload the LO libraries when you start the system, making it respond much more quickly when you launch it. That's the trick Microsoft uses to make Office load relatively quickly, and I'm pretty sure you can do something similar with LibreOffice.
UPDATE: Just tried loading LoWriter on Windows for the first time in a long time. It did take a good bit of time (10-15 seconds). However, subsequent loa
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Why bother? (Score:2)
I'm really struck by how much more awkward, productivity inhibiting and buggy Microsoft products are compared to their open source counterparts.
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Commercial software generally is, but once you've paid for something you're more likely to double down and learn to work around the bugs because you're already invested. If something is free and you encounter bugs, it's easy to throw it away or assume that you would have gotten a less buggy experience had you paid.
Microsoft also has the advantage that their bugs and subsequent kludgy workarounds are well known so many people are already in the habit of working around the bugs.
Re: Why bother? (Score:2)
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Exactly. I have free legitimate access to MS Office software at work. I ignore it and refuse to run it. I don't need or want it.
99% of what people need M$ Office for can just as well be done in Google Docs for fee. The other 1% can be done in LibreOffice. Why anyone bothers with anything M$ anymore is beyond comprehension.
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Google Docs is FREE. Yeah I made a typo.
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We have people at work who insist on writing a short memo etc (something like, "meeting at 3pm") in MS Word and then attaching it to email. The systems keeps getting clogged with thousands of word attachments and the users never learn despite how many times we ask them not to do it.
50% off on an eternal subscription (Score:2)
now doesn't that sound tempting? *harhar*
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now doesn't that sound tempting? *harhar*
50% off the first year of your eternal subscription.
You can rest assured that year 2 and later will all be full cost again.
100% off is better. (Score:3)
100% off is better. Use LibreOffice.
Still too much (Score:1)
LibreOffice and OpenOffice are free - although gladly accept donations!
Bonuses: the Calc program doesn't screw up delimited files anywhere near as badly as Excel does. And it often applies date formats to things that aren't meant to be dates. Unicode has been a thing for 35 years yet Excel still screws up encodings - which is unsurprising when you still see blog posts from Microsoft developers demonstrating they think UCS-2 and UTF-16 are interchangeable.
Why Pirate MS Office? (Score:4)
Meanwhile at Home Use Program (Score:1)
The discount is at 30%. Guess pirates still have more benefits than full paying customers: zero initial cost, and a hefty discount afterwards.
Shame on you, Micro$oft.
Yeah it's a shame you have to steal (Score:3)
If you actually want to own software these days.
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Would you say you "own" your copy of LibreOffice? The license the Mozilla Public License under which it is published gives more rights than most copyrights, including the right to publish modified versions.
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That's nice, what do you do about the rest of software? Or for the people who bought office and lost the license key, etc, etc, etc.
Re: Yeah it's a shame you have to steal (Score:2)
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No, but you have the right to use it, in its current form, in perpetuity.
Also, you probably will have the right to use future versions of it. The only way that stops being the case is if it gets taken proprietary, and even then, you can still fork the last FOSS version.
how about 90 (Score:2)
Might be tempting if 90 percent off. No less.
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Might be tempting if 90 percent off. No less.
That's basically what you're getting when you buy those Office keys you see advertised on Google shopping. They're not pirated copies; they're genuine MS keys meant for OEM's. The seller is violating the reseller license agreement with Microsoft when he sells them like that, but you, the end user, are doing nothing legally wrong. Which is why MS in all practicality can't shut down those sellers on Google and Amazon. They could if they wanted to, but it seems that MS would rather have you in their ecosystem
Would be nice if that was for a permanent license (Score:2)
The sound of pirates ... (Score:3)
I just use punctuation (Score:2)
For styling my documents. It's free.
50% of something is better than all of nothing (Score:1)
The problem is, smart pirates will know that discounted software subs are still a trap.
Piracy (Score:2)
So, again, being a pirate actually works out better than being an ordinary customer.
And this is supposed to incentivise anti-piracy how exactly?
And the irony is that the pirates won't take you up on it, because their offering is *still* better anyway.
just sell me office 2003 for cheap (Score:2)
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I don't think you'd get enough value out of trading in Microsoft Office to be able to cover the cost of Liberoffice.