Microsoft Fires Back at Pirates
Pirate-themed humor isn't as funny as it used to be, what with
real
pirates making news now in fairly gruesome ways.
So, on Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Day -- which was Tuesday,
in case it wasn't pre-programmed into your Outlook calendar -- we were already
planning to eschew the walk-the-plank, peg-leg-and-eye-patch theme. Then we
noticed that somebody -- from your editor's hometown newspaper (well, Web site,
anyway), no less -- had done
it for us. So, we thank you, The Dallas Morning News, for spicing
up RCPU this week. Yarr and all that to you.
What did we learn about piracy from Microsoft this week? Not that much, really,
that we didn't know already. Piracy, it turns out, is costly for the software
industry and for partners, and Microsoft has a bunch of educational and legal
campaigns in place to fight it. Which is good, of course -- and we're not here
to belittle anti-piracy efforts at all. (Actually, one thing we did learn is
that pirates don't
much like Vista, either.)
In fact, the only reason we're writing about this topic this week is because
it's been an oddly slow news week for the middle of October, and we found a
quote from Microsoft's press
materials just as cringe-worthy as the blogger at the News found
it:
"It turned out that I had unintentionally purchased a counterfeit
copy from an online auction site. The seller had said it was a genuine, unopened
product. I was outraged that he had ripped me off. The WGA program turned
out to be cool, and I got a genuine copy of the software. I think that Microsoft
is the best and I am a Microsoft user for life!"
OK, OK, we're all for combating piracy and all...but "WGA turned out to
be really cool"? Good night. Somebody needs to walk the plank for that
one. Yarr! (Sorry, we restrained ourselves for as long as we could.)
How does piracy affect your business? What do you think of Microsoft's anti-piracy
efforts? Let us know at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on October 22, 2008