more on Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of "Pirated" Vista Systems

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Warren Magnus <wmagnus () samespace com>
Date: October 4, 2006 1:33:20 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of  
"Pirated" Vista Systems

David Farber wrote:
> Begin forwarded message:
> From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
> Date: October 4, 2006 12:34:10 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: ip () v2 listbox com
> Subject: Re: [IP] Microsoft Plans For Automatic Hobbling of  
> "Pirated" Vista Systems
> I don't always agree with Lauren, but on this one, I do.
> There must be a few people in the Microsoft leadership (Ballmer,  
> perhaps?) who have come to view their customers as enemies or at  
> least peons who must bow down to the power of Microsoft in all things.
> Microsoft sees pirates - and it blames its customers.
> Microsoft sees pirates, and it lays a minefield in the path of all  
> its customers, to blow up anyone unsuspecting enough to walk into  
> that minefield.
> Microsoft behaves, in other words, like any power-mad dictator who  
> feels the need to punish the many for the problems it suffers from  
> the few.
> Is this the only approach that might make sense?   I guess it is  
> when your management adopts a paranoid mindset.
> I'd suggest an alternative: think creatively about how to encourage  
> customers to see the value you deliver.   Stop building your  
> success on "controlling the market" and "lockin" that delivers not  
> new value, but instead late, buggy crap with a few features thrown in.

Dave,

This is the usual anti-DRM argument and frankly I subscribe to this  
position in general. However, having lost this argument numerous  
times in the past with developers of other software, customer  
compliance with copyright enforcement strategies has laid the  
groundwork for this and proven that customers are totally OK with  
this kind of corporate behavior. Consumers apparently have no problem  
at all being treated like active criminals.

For years, Adobe, Microsoft, and everybody else who sells software  
has used phone home registration schemes and lengthy serial number  
keys. Some software won't even let you install on a second machine  
unless you uninstall on the first machine (Adobe, I'm talking to  
you). Users tolerate this without complaint and continue to vote with  
their wallets. Users buy the software anyhow.

Further, I expect that despite the capabilities to throttle down or  
even disable Vista systems, the mechanisms will be used to target the  
big piracy players. East Asian copy houses that crank out pirated CD- 
ROMs and publish stolen CD-keys along with them. Being able to shut  
down the user might well limit demand for the big mass produced  
pirate copies.

Setting the threshold to forgive small scale copying would mean that  
a family could get away with installing the same serial number of  
Vista on more than one machine. Microsoft has already shown huge  
leniency with this kind of soft piracy  with regard to Windows One  
Care which carries a 3 machine license that doesn't check to see  
whether there are really only 3 machines installed with a single CD- 
key. Similarly the Student/Teacher Editition of Microsoft Office is  
very soft on the enforcement of the 3 machine license limit.

-W


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