BusinessWeek Advocates Microsoft Piracy 181
xzvf writes "In a lengthy editorial, BusinessWeek advocates allowing users in China and India to pirate Microsoft software so that it can obtain the same level of market share there as it has in the US and Europe. From the piece: 'If Microsoft succeeds in discouraging piracy of Windows in China and India, it is far more likely to drive the user of the pirated software into the Linux camp than it is to steer them into the land of paid-up Windows users. Microsoft's IP management strategy in China and India should instead focus on securing the victory of Windows on the desktops of all PC users. That may require deliberately lax enforcement efforts against pirated copies of Windows for the short and medium term. Only after the Linux threat lessens might Microsoft have the luxury of tightening up piracy protections, as it is now doing in the West. Microsoft can afford to be patient.'"
BusinessWeek Can Explain (Score:5, Funny)
BusinessWeek was just wondering, like, if any of its readers or anyone they know
It's totally cool if you don't want to but, like, everyone's doing it and you get to use each license like three times before they stop considering it 'genuine' so BusinessWeek doesn't know what you're afraid of. You're not afraid are you? You're not going to wuss out on BusinessWeek like that dweeb BusinessEthics [business-ethics.com], are you?
This is so stupid, Windows would rather have me using this than something else or telling everyone not to use Windows at all
Didn't think so.
Fine, whatever, BusinessWeek doesn't have to beg, BusinessWeek has magazine friends in high magazine places. BusinessWeek is just going to go talk to MacWorld or maybe even LinuxMagazine (as a last resort). BusinessWeek is going to tell National Lampoon's Magazine about you, you'll be on his next cover. Oh, and don't expect to get any from Playboy either because BusinessWeek is stopping by his slot right now.
What happened to you, man? You used to be cool.
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Missing tag (Score:3, Insightful)
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Honestly though, it's not like MS hadn't already set that trap years ago.
interesting angle (Score:5, Interesting)
The headline suggests Business Week could be advocating piracy of Microsoft software. This could suggest some bizarre alignment of the stars such that Business Week is Microsoft-averse, but it's clear the opposite is true.
Basically Business Week lays the groundwork as a recommendation to Microsoft to extend and maintain their monopoly, hardly an adversarial position.
I wonder that Microsoft needs this prodding. I suspect they wink and nod as much as they have to to maintain their reach into all markets however they need to do just that. This while screaming publicly about how ripped off they are in countries like China.
From the article, signs point to the very fact Microsoft alreay knows the strategy:
Microsoft is eating their cake and having it too (the correct form, btw) [wikipedia.org].
This will backfire on MS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This will backfire on MS (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmm... In the U.S. we are used to paying more than anyone else for pharmaceuticals. In the EU there are tariffs on all sorts of things that jack up the prices (camcorders & cameras were covered on this site a couple of days ago).
You may be correct that MS is going after large suppliers, but your final statement might need a bit more thought.
Regards.
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That was my first thought. I wonder if pointing out that Microsoft is not vigorously enforcing their license in other markets could be used as a defense against the BSA.
Re:This will backfire on MS (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This will backfire on MS (Score:5, Insightful)
China and India have different IP laws, and different law courts than the US, and anyone operating in the US is held to US law. The law clearly states what end users can do with MS's IP (almost nothing), and MS grants further rights to end users IN THE US through its EULA.
If you read their EULAs for different countries, you will notice that they are different, due to differing laws and legal systems. This is called living on planet Earth, and does not give you the ability to use MS software for free because the rights MS grants you to use their property are too confusing. If you can't understand your rights to use their software, then legally you have NO rights to use their software, other than what is spelled out in Fair Use doctrine (which doesn't cover as much as people think it does). As I said before, the only weakness in MS's tactics is that they could be sued for anticompetitive actions. To do this however, you'd first have to prove that they were indeed promoting piracy of their products or at least being very specific in who they targeted with their lawsuits.
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meh. i'd take one of those.
Begs the question, why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically Business Week lays the groundwork as a recommendation to Microsoft to extend and maintain their monopoly..
When we consider what an abusive monopoly that has been, we have to wonder why Business Week would advocate it. What is a news magazine doing advocating any single business, much less one that has destroyed so many others?
It's doubtful people actually making decisions read Businessweek so it's purpose is not to inform. Most people who really know what's going on in the predatory compan
Duh! (Score:3, Informative)
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
CNET News.com, July 2, 1998 [com.com]
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And I don't know what they're talking about in terms of Microsoft needing to make sure their software is used in China. (I live here.) Nobody uses anything except Windows (and no, they don't pay for it, either). In fact, Microsoft's already got this market completely locked up, as far as I'm concerned. They even do things
Re:interesting angle (Score:5, Informative)
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old news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the buyer is hooked, hike the price.
That's also the text book behavior of a drug dealer.
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Nonetheless, they aren't quite the same. Drug dealers have a pretty good idea that people will get hooked on their product. Starting out, software companies charge little/less for their products because they have to. They're competing, and trying to gain market share. Once you have the market share, you
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[1] Disclaimer: not guaranteed.
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And thanks to incompatible file formats, Microsoft is assured of this too. That was the reason Word included only import filters for WordPerfect - once you got in, you couldn't get out.
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The second thought, continuing along this behavioral line of thought, is that
actually (Score:3, Informative)
- 10 Points to Business Week (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:- 10 Points to Business Week (Score:5, Informative)
More like, get them using your product, get them hooked, and then milk them for the next 50 years.
Like selling crack.
Back in the late 80's/early 90's, a tremendous amount of not-paid-for copies of DOS were floating about. MS didn't really bitch too much because it was getting everyone hooked on their product and making itself the defacto standard for an operating system (because, at the time, everyone wanted an IBM-compatible computer -- and, that meant DOS.)
Then, once everyone depended on it heavily, they started trying to lock it down.
In this case, the author is arguing that in huge emerging markets, you're better off letting everyone start using it rather than risk them running something else. Imagine if the home-grown Chinese Linux distro became dominant instead of Windows -- that's a hell of a lot of people who won't be your customers in the future.
Cheers
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They only ever viewed "teaching a man to fish" as a means to sell expensive, proprietary bait and tackle. Once it became clear that Negroponte's vision explicitly included teaching a man where to dig for worms and how to select a suitable tree for making a fishing-rod, they cranked the scorn-pouring machine right up to 11.
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Re:- 10 Points to Business Week (Score:5, Insightful)
That pretty much sums up TFA; and it's a tried and tested strategy that has worked well for Microsoft and others for a very long time - if you want to give -10 points to Business Week it should be as Redundant.
Whether it will actually work in an environment where Microsoft seems currently unable to come up with an OS which is worth a paid upgrade over XP is the real question. Rent seeking behaviour only works when no one is offering free accommodation with acceptable functionality. It's up to Microsoft to beat Linux now - it will be interesting to see if they do, and ultimately it will be users who reap the benefit of competition.
[sits back, reaches for popcorn]
Can there really be a moral (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Chesbrough isn't even subtle about it either--he openly advocates "selective enforcement" of the law to maintain dominance and smother the competition. He goes on further to explain how as a market goes from creation and growth phases into maturity (ie. they have their users trapped) that MS should then suddenly ramp up enforcement and start collecting payback. This is how drug dealers and the mafia operate, not how legitimate businesses are supposed to operate!
Either this clown is as ethically challenged as an Enron accountant or else he is a masterful troll. I can only hope it is the latter and he is trying to bring "A Modest Proposal" into the information age. I'd be careful if I were him though, because over the years, MS has gradually been moving towards the "Mafia business model" and is very nearly there: They already have the opinion that "if the Chinese are pirating it should at least be our stuff", have "favourite customers" that pay only a small fraction of the US retail price...and they are already making patent "protection money" deals with skittish Linux companies. They need no more encouragement from the likes of Business Week and its editors.
Whew, my hopes are confirmed (Score:5, Informative)
Henry Chesbrough is Executive Director of the Center for Open Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is the author of Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape (Harvard Business School Press, 2006). He is an authority on open innovation, open business models, and more open approaches to intellectual property management.
'twas a masterful troll Mr. Chesbrough. Jonathan Swift would be proud.
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In fact, yes, if you are a monopoly.
Let me tell you about the economic principle of "price discrimination". You make the most profit when you charge each person who buys your product pays the maximum price they would have been willing to pay for it. If someone isn't willing to pay for your product, then you don't lose any revenue by giving it to them for free. And if it costs you nothing to give it to t
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More like "don't milk them until they're locked in enough to be milked". Why do you think educational copies are so cheap? And the younger the pupils, the cheaper the licenses. It's the same for whole countries - if you're not hooked enough or don't have enough disposable cash, they'll let you grow into a nice and juicy target. Then you start putting the clamps on businesses and other institutions that have
As funny as it sounds... (Score:2)
All of us would reap benefits as well - the pirated copies of Windows in these countries are not patched to get rid of security issue, and many are now zombies in some huge bot network.
Assuming customers kept patches up to date with a legit OS, it could decrease the amount of spam, DDOS attacks, etc.
Microsoft has already said this (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.
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+1. Here is another source that is often quoted in this context: Bill Gates [cnn.com]: "[P]eople don't pay for the software [...] Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." This quote is from the year 2000, mind you.
T
help (Score:2)
The way it was done here... (Score:4, Funny)
Fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can't have assembled laptops since they're not made of generic parts. Same reason why there are no assembled mobile phones. The casing is usually custom, the parts are fitted in a custom way to fit the tight space inside a laptop.
Notice how much
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The manufacturers would be up against established players, who have the c
Godfather (Score:4, Insightful)
"The Corleone family will be totally legitimate in five years Kate."
Remember When... (Score:2)
ratting them out to the BSA (Score:2)
This idea came to mind after reading how Microsoft put the BSA onto various school districts in the US in an attempt to force them into that foolish Microsoft Software Assurance contract. It backfired and a number of school districts switched out from Microsoft Windows to GNU/Linux software instead. The nam
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Ernie Ball [wikipedia.org], the guitar string guy? I don't get the connection.
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Won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
price solution (Score:4, Insightful)
I have mixed feelings about the logic of differential pricing. Companies are free to charge whatever price they please, but the trouble is that in a global economy where anyone can buy anything from anyone anywhere else, how do we know what is 'fair'? What makes it 'fair' to charge Americans and Canadians more than Chinese and Indians for goods and services? Who decides what is a fair price? Apparently it is 'the market', but if that's the case then why can't I buy Region 6 DVDs from Circuit City for $1? Why is there a stink made by companies and economists who say that free trade is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then complain when they see products sold on eBay for prices that are genuinely fair given the elimination of transaction barriers in the global economy.
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When the govt restricts how you use your product, then it is no longer free trade. It is managed trade - and depending
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Here is my proposal. MS gives away most of it's software for personal use, just like so many other companies do. For software that is not given away, i.e. enterprise software, the prices should be formally negotiated between MS and the firm. This is what happens in most enterprise software. Only software that is purchased will be supported for free. So if one wants
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Since when? New DVD's are still $15-$25 and cd's are still $13-$20. Yes that may be affordable, but it's still not a fair price. That's why I buy only used dvd's, cd's, and games. For me, the used price is what seems fair for a new item (except at EBStop. $45-$55 for a used game? Really?). Prices a
Tighten up (Score:4, Interesting)
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But it ain't gonna happen.
Re:Tighten up (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, never mind.
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The problem is that there's no way for a computer to know whether any given use of a piece of software is legitimate or otherwise.
Two ways that you could come close would be: (1) Have a policeman and standing watching everyone as they use Microsoft Windows. (2) Encrypt
Unfair to business (Score:4, Insightful)
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Then adjust your business model (Score:2)
You complain that foreign companies are getting software for free, but, as a reader of
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I suspect in a few years the concept of "piracy" will be something that is talked about in retirement homes and warehouses for the dying only. On a global scale, without any effective enforcement, piracy will be the rule.
Today almost nobody under 30 understands there is anything wrong with it - it is just how they get their music, movies and software. It is there, free for the taking, so they take it. They laugh at the "3 steps
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I also think that seeing how backwards everything is (criminals in government corrupting and gaming the system for their own gain, seeing how the rich get richer and poor get poorer, how many large corporations pay no tax - how basically everything is back room deals and bullshit - seeing how (especially with the current administration) in some ways for the rich or connected America has become a kleptocracy.
People see that long enough, they see people taking advantage of thei
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It has a equalising effect, the cheap labour slowly gets more and more expensive (and by increasing its purchase power drives prices up) while the more expensive labour must become cheaper (and by getting poorer, drives prices down). It's just tough luck that you happe
instead (Score:2)
pffft (Score:5, Interesting)
it's not like microsoft has a gun in it's hand and the question is when microsoft should shoot. microsoft simply has nothing in it's hand at all
and it's just desserts: in the 1800s, american publishers openly flaunted european copyrights. now it's the usa's turn to be on the receiving end of a growing power ignoring the "rights" of an established power base
but don't worry about it microsoft, in 200 years, chinaslashdot.org will carry a story about when china should release the nanobots to punish bangladeshi genome pirates stealing chinese biotech copyrights... and bangladeshi and enlightened chinese observers pointing out that the nanobots would have no effect on stopping the illegal conception of pirated organisms
Isn't it illegal? (Score:3, Interesting)
At the very least this is encouraging Microsoft to behave in a manner that would affect the RICO judgement against them. What would BusinessWeeks liability be?
I'm running a pirated OS (Score:4, Funny)
Ha-ha! I found some unprotected disk images on the web and installed it on every one of my machines at home. It didn't cost me a dime. Hacked my way around the registration and got it running.
Those looo-hsers at the Kubuntu corporation don't even know I have it!
I'm l33t! I r3w1!
Real Pirate OS (Score:2)
Though, I did almost have a graphics stall when I accidentally loaded up the goatse picture... that was one hell of an "eye patch" to render there!
Free OS, charge for the apps (Score:2, Insightful)
Give away the core Windows OS for free. Charge for the applications (which only work with Windows.)
Move to subscription based application software and/or charge the larger third party application developers a small fee to make up the loss (SDKs, programming tools, license fees for using SDKs/DirectX, etc..) The Microsoft tax moves from the PC manufacturer to the software developers and users. Either way, the customers pay the cost as normal. More importantly, people will choose free Windows, Microsoft
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The point to remember about Microsoft is that their products are good enough for the majority of users or at least tolerable. Also, a huge number of problems in Windows are due to environmental considerations. If you install hardware with flakey drivers, you get crashes. How many hardware companies are out there developing their own drivers and not getting
Amusing quote (Score:2)
Right, 'cause if Microsoft would just sit patiently and wait, this whole "Linux" fad will just blow over. Hee hee hee.
Chinese Govt & Big Business (Score:4, Insightful)
<tinfoil>
Likewise, having access to source and their own distro allows them to add hooks and backdoors to spy on their own citizens.
</tinfoil>
I realize that the above doesn't apply to the average user in China but considering the majority of the market over there right now is government and business I'm sure MS is more concerned with them switching to Linux then the average Chinese citizen...
Two ways of looking at this: (Score:2)
Trademark issues (Score:3, Insightful)
IANAL but...
Codifex Maximus
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I think you are a bit confused. No one is abusing MS trademarks if they pirate MS software - the software is still Microsoft(tm) Windows(tm) pirated or otherwise. Now, if a Linux distribution started naming themselves Microsoft Windows (which of course it would not be) I am sur
Is BusinessWeek a Microsoft product? (Score:4, Interesting)
Publication of the article makes no sense (Score:2)
I've been wondering exactly the same thing. I can't figure out who BusinessWeek is targeting with
This demonstrates the basic fallacy of IP "piracy" (Score:3, Interesting)
And many business people understand that. If they can use it to their advantage, they do, without any of the moral "hand wringing" that others do.
There was a clothing company who discovered that a Hong Kong or Taiwan outfit was counterfeiting their brand. Instead of bringing legal action, they went to the company and bought it out, subsequently releasing the same "counterfeit" product as their "bargain brand."
It's only people who don't have control over their own product - like artists under contract to music companies - or companies who don't know how to take advantage of or compete with so-called "piracy" who moan and groan about it.
The solution to every problem of this sort is: how can I take advantage of it?
Deliberate allowance of piracy = case of estoppel? (Score:3, Interesting)
Estoppel by silence: "A type of estoppel that prevents a person from asserting something when she had both the duty and the opportunity to speak up earlier..."
Since Microsoft allows piracy, can the company lose its copyright?
Microsoft definitely encourages piracy, in my opinion. For years, local computer stores carried to office suite alternatives: Legal Microsoft Office, and pirated Microsoft Office for $50. Word Perfect and Lotus could not compete. I'm not sure what local computer stores are doing now.
I could give other examples.
Re:Deliberate allowance of piracy = case of estopp (Score:2)
The copyright owner can distribute his work under whatever terms he damn well pleases. It is constitutionally derived property right. It is not a trade or service mark that has to be defended against all comers.
For years, local computer stores carried to office suite alternatives
And for at least the past decade MS has offered a home office suite priced at around $100. Cureently MS Home and Student 2007, retail boxed, three seat license,
And Linux Groups Can Help (Score:2)
Companies who compare Linux to pirated Windows look at the cost: $0 to $0, having the source code likely does not factor into the equation. But, when Microsoft users are forced off pirated Microsoft products, Linux advocates can accept these Window refugees with open arms, thus expanding t
How Microsoft Conqured China (Score:2)
Microsoft owns the Chinese market.
Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft's best long-term strategy. That's why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China's 120 million PCs. "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not,"
"Linux threat lessens" (Score:3, Insightful)
The Linux threat is not going to lessen. BusinessWeek seems to think that MS can give the software away, get a monopoly, and then there will be no threat. That strategy has not worked even in the US, where people are rich enough to afford Microsoft software and where there are no political reasons to avoid Microsoft. (If I were in a foreign government, I wouldn't want to count on a US software company, just as some US government folks got skittish when Lenovo took over the ThinkPads.) People are not switching to Linux solely because of price. They are switching because it is in some ways a superior product.
Microsoft's problem is not Linux; Microsoft's problem is that it has an antiquated business model: selling shrink-wrapped commodity software at astronomical prices. Giving the software away will delay the inevitable, but the key word is "inevitable".
Like I say... piracy benefits Microsoft. (Score:2)
When people have said that piracy was "hitting back at Microsoft" that's always been a sure way t
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When you want an Office suite, assuming you don't know about OpenOffice, you have four choices.
The biggest saving is to be had by pirating MS Office, so that's what people will do. (Even if the honest ones buy CheapOffice to begin with, chances are that they'll eventually hit a snag with save-file incompatibilities an
Price of Software in Man-Hours of Labor. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what is the price in man-hours for the median-income American? and what is the price of the same in China for a median-income Chinese worker? Is there a correlation between these figures and the likelihood that a user will pirate the software rather than purchase it from a legitimate source?
I think Business Week is wrong (Score:2)
Of course, I'm a Linux advocate and think that the highest and best purpose for MS is to provide us with entertainment, and if they send goon squads into China, the results will indeed be entertaining.
Purposely allowing piracy (Score:2)
It is also equivalent to Microsoft giving a huge subsidy to companies that compete with us. My company spends a couple million a year on Microsoft licenses. I'm sure they would be ecstatic to hear that their indian and chinese competitors are getting the same software for free.
Yet another reason for them to move everything except the executives over to india and china.
The End of Vista (or Activation) (Score:2)
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No. They never had it.
MS took off when they were given the keys to the IBM-PC market and have spent all their time since making sure that no one else ever gets the keys back. They'd sink without trace if they had to fight in an open market, and they know it or they wouldn't bother bullying OEMs to install Windows, or paying politicians to block open standards laws, would they?