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Piracy Software

Russia Mulls Legalizing Software Piracy As It's Cut Off From Western Tech (arstechnica.com) 131

Posted by BeauHD from the Cyber-Curtain dept.
With sanctions against Russia starting to bite, the Kremlin is mulling ways to keep businesses and the government running. The latest is a creative twist on state asset seizures, only instead of the government taking over an oil refinery, for example, Russia is considering legalizing software piracy. Ars Technica reports: Russian law already allows for the government to authorize -- "without consent of the patent holder" -- the use of any intellectual property "in case of emergency related to ensuring the defense and security of the state." The government hasn't taken that step yet, but it may soon, according to a report from Russian business newspaper Kommersant, spotted and translated by Kyle Mitchell, an attorney who specializes in technology law. It's yet another sign of a Cyber Curtain that's increasingly separating Russia from the West.

The plan would create "a compulsory licensing mechanism for software, databases, and technology for integrated microcircuits," the Kommersant said. It would only apply to companies from countries that have imposed sanctions. While the article doesn't name names, many large Western firms -- some of which would be likely targets -- have drastically scaled back business in Russia. So far, Microsoft has suspended sales of new products and services in Russia, Apple has stopped selling devices, and Samsung has stopped selling both devices and chips. Presumably, any move by the Kremlin to "seize" IP would exempt Chinese companies, which are reportedly considering how to press their advantage. Smartphone-makers Xiaomi and Honor stand to gain, as do Chinese automakers. Still, any gains aren't guaranteed since doing business in Russia has become riddled with problems, spanning everything from logistics to finance.
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Russia Mulls Legalizing Software Piracy As It's Cut Off From Western Tech More

Russia Mulls Legalizing Software Piracy As It's Cut Off From Western Tech

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  • If Russians have 'permission' to steal software, this will kill Chinese firms. They won't be able to sell software to Russia if Russia can just take Microsoft's etc. technology without paying.

    • Why would it kill Chinese firms? China knows where the money is - manufacturing. While the West continues to pursue rent-seeking (copyrights, patents, housing bubbles, crypto bubbles) as an economic driver, China is actually doing things which create value for their economy. They've even cracked down on those software companies which do nothing but exist solely for the purpose of manipulating stock prices.

      • While the West continues to pursue rent-seeking (copyrights, patents, housing bubbles, crypto bubbles) as an economic driver, China is actually doing things which create value for their economy.

        Honestly you're a total moron if you really don't think copyrights and patents create value. Given the other incredibly stupid statements you've made in the past though, I think most people already knew that.

        • I don't ever recall being aggressive towards you before, but I guess you got butthurt over whatever I said one time. Maybe you're one of those Anonymous Cowards that has been after me.

        • Copyright and patents have been shown to stifle creativity and encourage rent seeking (as in "patent trolls"). Some IP laws are a good thing, but the fact you can no longer produce certain records (Paul's Boutique), or that companies can now have centuries of copyright is rentseeking.

          Rent seeking was a major factor in the decline of the Spanish and Dutch empires. I'd be very wary of it.

          • Ooh, a history lesson! How did the spanish empire have rent seeking in their economy? Im curious because this is some of the world history that often gets left out unless you are geographically nearby.

            • Fun facts :)

              They got so much gold out of their holdings in South America, that it completely destroyed their own economy. After all, if you have so much money that you can already buy everything there is, why bother doing anything hard to create a business that earns even more? They allowed people that had gotten rich to migrate into the nobility that was literally rent-seeking on land, and largely tax-exempt. This created an ever declining basis for taxation while at the same time, the mineral resources we

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        I suggest you read some work from actual experts in this area, such as Westlake and Haskell's book on intangible goods.

        https://press.princeton.edu/bo... [princeton.edu]

        • I suggest you take a look at the real world of VC funded Ponzi schemes.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by shilly ( 142940 )

            VC funded Ponzi schemes are the tiniest fraction of Western GDP. Like well under 0.1%. However, the intangible economy is substantially larger than the tangible economy.

            Honestly, go read the book. Go and learn something, stop assuming you know lots. Jonathan Haskell and Stian Westlake are clever and insightful and have thought about this much more than you. Be open to new ideas for once.

            • However, the intangible economy is substantially larger than the tangible economy.

              And where is that money going?

              Not to the single mother that has to raise kids and work two jobs.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by shilly ( 142940 )

                So do I presume from this rather obvious attempt to change the subject that you are now going to concede that creating intangible goods does, in fact, create value for the economy? Because if so, it would be less graceless of you to say this out loud as a concession, before going on to argue that the profits from tangible goods are more fairly distributed than the profits from intangible goods, which is a novel and pretty heroically-unencumbered-by-evidence assertion to make. If you can't produce evidence t

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vlad30 ( 44644 )
        Correct on Manufacturing - It will also help when it needs to make war materials

        Copyrights and Patents If they were as they as originally intended they would be good long enough to recover development cost not so long you didn't need to create again.

        Housing bubbles, crypto, social media other non productive garbage is just distracting the west

        Problem for the west we let China have the technology and make it to easy to steal patented tech in an attempt to get 1.3 billion customers thinking they will welco

      • There's no money in manufacturing. You can't add value in manufacturing you can only ever hope to offer an identical product at slightly lower prices, usually by eating into your already meager or non-existent profit margins.

        Commodity work means that the next entrant who is willing to undercut you or take a loss to enter the market can put you under if they're slightly better capitalized and able to weather the loss leader pain longer than you.

        "Rent seeking" as you call it means you have a monopoly on wha

        • There is tons of money in manufacturing, because manufacturing creates the goods that then gets sold and eventually finds its way to retail, which in itself creates new markets or expands existing ones. It's called an economic driver for a reason - it doesn't just create value that lasts for just one step.
    • They probably would just legalize continuing to use software that cannot be purchased due to sanctions against Russia, which China is not participating in.

      Yep, here it is: "It would only apply to companies from countries that have imposed sanctions."

      • Oh yeah, I see your point is China couldn't compete against free US software.

        I guess that will depend on how impractical Microsoft can make using unlicensed software, over time. For example if they stopped producing a Russian language version of new releases.

    • I'm guessing they won't 'steal' the software they will take the software and pay for it in rubles at the government determined exchange rate and software value.
    • First of all Beau as usually is Beau - not understanding what it is and being FULL OF SH*T.

      Second. IT IS NOT SOFTWARE, IT IS PATENTS. Pharma. Electronics. Turbines. Everything.

      Third. It is not mulled. THE DECISION WAS TAKEN YESTERDAY. Yesterday, the Russian government declared all patents from "unfriendly states" (all states supporting Ukraine and/or joining the USA sanctions) to be subject to the crown use clauses in the Berne convention and set the crown use royalties to ZERO.

      Fourth. The statute takes

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Chinese companies probably won't be rushing to supply Russia. It's just not worth it for a relatively small market that is currently in sharp decline, and with the risk of legal hassles in the much more lucrative European and US markets due to breaking sanctions.

      • You think the Chinese government will pass up the chance to firmly bind a decaying state to itself as a new vassal? Especially one as rich in resources, fertile land and room as Russia?

        I don't. I think they will use this to cement Russia to their own coin, followed up by the Road and Belt initiative creating a few new roads and railways.

        Politics follow trade. A lesson not only the UK and Northern Ireland are going to have to relearn, it seems.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      As if this hasn't been the case in Russia since the end of the Soviet Union.

  • hey, why not? (Score:3)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Monday March 07, 2022 @08:18PM (#62335141) Homepage
    They've already legalised corruption, the rigging of elections and the murder of any opposition. Not to mention prison for reporting the truth.

    • "They've already legalised corruption, the rigging of elections and the murder of any opposition. Not to mention prison for reporting the truth."

      Except for murder, that's a pretty accurate description of the current state of affairs in the good ol' US of A.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        "They've already legalised corruption, the rigging of elections and the murder of any opposition. Not to mention prison for reporting the truth."

        Except for murder, that's a pretty accurate description of the current state of affairs in the good ol' US of A.

        Indeed. For murder you need at least find a racial pretext or "suicide" somebody so there is some minimal level of deniability. Nobody of those supposedly enforcing laws seems to mind much though and the risks for the killers are pretty low even if they do it openly.

        • That's an excellent point. Epstein's "suicide", especially, is about as blatantly obvious as an elephant's woody. The only real question is whether his departure from this veil of tears was instigated directly by one or more politicians, or by their owners.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        That's bullshit.

        None of those things are legal in the USA. Sometimes the laws are not enforced properly, but there is a qualitative difference between the USA and Russia in all those areas.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        And revealing that there's an invasion and war in Ukraine carries the same sentence as for murder.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Just sayin', the US and UK are both pretty much legalized corruption and election rigging. Not quite at the stage of murdering opposition yet, but the UK is looking to make protest a crime punishable by 10 years in jail. For comparison it's only 7 years in Russia.

      My point is that democracy is fragile and we saw how quickly it failed in Russia. We need to make our own democracies more robust in light of recent events.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        We need to make our own democracies more robust in light of recent events.

        That would mean to actually limit punishments to sane levels, make sure nobody has too much power and really go after corruption. All things that are inconvenient and contradict what many people want. Hence it is probably not going to happen. The UK is just further down that path than many. Remember that not being subject to the oversight provided by the European Court of Justice was a major motivation for Brexit. I wonder what some people are planning now that they got rid of that limiting factor.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I would suggest that protest should not be illegal at all. If a lot of people are protesting it's usually because democracy isn't working very well.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            I would suggest that protest should not be illegal at all. If a lot of people are protesting it's usually because democracy isn't working very well.

            Obviously. On the other hand, you have to also tolerate nazis and anti-vaxxers protesting, sometimes together. But it is likely still be better if they are out in the open.

          • I would suggest that protest should not be illegal at all.

            Protesting isn't illegal at all. Trespassing, blocking traffic, vandalism, arson, etc. are illegal, but protesting is not, at least in the US. You just have to protest in the right places and in the right ways.

            Intentional lawbreaking is a common protest strategy, of course. Trespassing or blocking traffic makes it more likely that your protest will make the news, and protesters have done that for a long time, essentially trading money (the fines they have to pay) to increase visibility when they can't mu

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Reminds me of the "free speech zones", conveniently located where nobody who matters will see them.

  • So, (Score:2)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )

    no actual change then.

    • no actual change then.

      Big change. There's a difference between every commoner "stealing" and the government legalising large businesses to do the same.

  • Just imagine all the lost licensing revenue from Russia! What will we do?!

    • I'm sure they had at least one license - for all of Russia

    • Well, if there's anything that gets lawyers into a tizzy, it's taking something that's IP. When the US established the first provisional government in Iraq one of the very first things they did as their high priority to-do list, is update intellectual property laws. Seriously, before even the electricity was back on this was considered important. Of course, that was probably Disney and other Hollywood types putting on the pressure rather than Microsoft or ARM. But if some big name political donor says "

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by butlerm ( 3112 )

        When Russia gets ready to rejoin the civilized world, I am sure they will bring their intellectual property laws back to normal status as well.

        As long as they are turning Ukraine or any other country into a wasteland, who really cares how much software they pirate? Concern for copyright violations when there is a major war on is an insult to the people suffering and dying over there.

  • ... given that Intel, AMD and the content industries are killing the general computer and turning into a locked down device to get around anti-trust so companies can monopolize their own software products and engage in extortionate software licensing.

    This was from 2001:

    https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]

    Here is a paper explaining what the future of files/broadcasts will be like:

    https://web2.qatar.cmu.edu/cs/... [cmu.edu]

    Basically they are building a parallel mainframe inside our PC's that only youtube, netflix, the gam

  • "Russia Mulls Legalizing Software Piracy" maybe it's just me but What changed?
    • LOL, I was thinking the same thing. Everyone knows you visit the Russian servers for the best pirated stuff.

    • Russia had cracked down on piracy in the early 2000s. Their largest torrent tracker used to be blocked until a few days ago.

  • So now people will write code to check the location it's running at:
    If running in Russia (or no location datum available) = down the rabbit hole.

  • The internet connections will be severed, exporting anything to Russia, even Open Source software, will become illegal, Russians abroad will be deeply distrusted and unwelcome. And if China becomes a backdoor for Russia, China is next. In a cold war you're with us or you're with them.

  • that, in the post "Citizens United" era, virtually all western governments are owned by multi-national corporations this appears semi--suicidal by Putin.

    After all, these groups have a great deal of profit to lose in the matter.

  • It's the same effect as giving them all free (as in beer) software, it will crush their domestic ability to pay programmers, and accelerate the ongoing brain drain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      It's only intended as a short term measure, they would be very stupid to continue using pirated software sourced from hostile countries in the long term and will be working to create their own domestic replacements. They have actually been trying to create domestic replacements for a while (as have china and north korea), but this process is likely to be accelerated now.

  • The whole point of the cloud is to turn all software, even free software, into web services.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

      That's what I thought too. There aren't many software suites anymore that don't need to phone home at least every few days to remain functional. So, the value of this is going to be limited.

  • Men will literally legalize piracy before using open source software.

  • allofmp3 to come back for software?
    now will Russia be able to get an steam master key and bypass paying for it?

  • Plenty of people here think that merely a price they don't like justifies "piracy", or that having to jump through too many hoops justifies it.

    (And I can sympathize, if not completely agree ... at any rate, I'd fully support going back to the founders' 7 year copyright. )

    I would think not being able to buy stuff legally at all would be the biggest hoop of all to jump through. So why wouldn't that justify "piracy", if anything could?

  • No countermeasure will be able to stop Russian software piracy. They've got too much expertise in breaking all sorts of security.

    • I thought they pirated half their software already?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fazig ( 2909523 )
        From the article:

        Software piracy in Russia is nothing new, of course. A 2019 survey by ESET, a Slovakian security company, found that 91 percent of Russians preferred pirated content, with nearly 20 percent saying that they had installed cracked software. The most commonly cited reason—listed by 75 percent of respondents—was that the official versions cost too much money. The practice has been institutionalized before, too; Mitchell mentions that just a decade ago, Russian ISPs hosted their own

  • ...will finally be the year of the Linux desktop!

  • "So far, Microsoft has suspended sales of new products and services in Russia..."

    In other words, Russians may have to use older Microsoft products...the ones not nearly as efficient at turning the computer you used to own into a surveillance device dedicated to shoving advertising from Microsoft and its corporate buddies down your throat.

    Of course, the Black Mirror version would have Russian state hackers simply replace "Redmond" with "Putin" in Microsoft's newest and shiniest privacy-raping software, and

  • A few weeks before invasion all Russian gov computers switched from Windows to some homebrew os.

    • All government computers switched OS to something homebrew?

      Here's a hint: When someone claims to do something so incredible that it makes the entire rest of the world look woefully incompetent by comparison, and it doesn't even make special interest news let alone major news, you know you're being lied to. Most countries can't even manage a simple software update rolled out in stages over a period of years.

      Do you honestly believe what you wrote? Because in that case I have so very many bridges to sell you.

  • Although the precedent has been set where GitHub restricted usage by Iranian, Crimean, and Syrian developers due to sanctions [techcrunch.com], it weirdly has not yet pulled the plug on Russia. Obviously, open source Russian contributors could still access GitHub via proxy or vpn, but the Microsoft-owned company could at least dump contracts with commercial projects based in Russia.

    Consider signing this petition [change.org].

    Here's Github's perspective [github.blog] on why it wants to keep paying taxes to Putin's regime on each subscription from Ru

  • When they detect piracy don't fail in immediately visible ways. Word Processors delete a sentence every once in a while, excel sheets just randomly fiddle with cells that were off screen etc..

  • Like they haven't been doing this for years already. I remember stories about pirated PDP-11 and Apple ][ clones, even some Rockwell embedded CPU. Back in the day I worked for a system vendor who had jumped through considerable hoops to sell an instance of their previous-gen product into the PRC. These involved slowing the clock, and time-bombing the microcode. The idea was that in case of, you know, war, the box would stop working if they didn't get their monthly keepalive tape.

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