Microsoft heralds 'record' prison terms for Chinese pirates

Microsoft patted itself on the back on New Year’s Eve by announcing that the alleged ringleaders of a Chinese piracy gang, who sold at least $2bn worth of counterfeit software, have been sentenced to harsh prison terms. The company said that 11 defendants were handed sentences that ranged from one and a half to six and a half …

[Efros]

Just as well

China is paying lipservice to these western Copyright hogs, if they were taking it seriously they would be resorting to the age old punishment from Chinese courts... death for any crime!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't be arsed to read article...

...but Linux blah, blah, blah, blah..Micro$haft evil, drone,drone,dron...Zzzzzzzzz

[Geoff Mackenzie]

Wow, that's great.

Good on the bloodthirsty incompetents. Really good stuff.

Not gloating might have seemed a bit less evil but hey, they don't have much to celebrate these days, do they?

[Gary]

Microsoft should take note:

Potential customers willing to use Micro$oft products but not willing to pay Micro$ofts high prices....

I can think of an easy way to reduce piracy rates. Can they?

[Dunstan Vavasour]

Chinese getting on top of piracy

So after the Indian Navy sunk a pirate vessel, the Chinese are following by ... oh wait a minute, not that sort of pirate.

This is all soooo confusing.

[John Stag]

$2 billion for a couple of years in the nick?

Where do I sign up to be a software pirate...?

[Francis Fish]

I wonder if Microsoft execs will be allowed to harvest their organs too?

Emitting whoops of joy that someone has been imprisoned in a country that has such an appalling human rights record is not good. Particularly when your monopoly was built on allowing piracy in the early days to stop other people getting any market share.

Was there a fair trial? Probably not. Shame on you Microsoft. I agree the law should be enforced, but fairly and justly.

[Anonymous Coward]

"high quality counterfeit Microsoft software"

It was the high quality that gave it away as counterfeit.

[John Colman]

$2bn?

I find it hard to trust the microsoft figures here... I mean, come on, they released Vista, can they ever be trusted again???

[Giles Jones]

Not pirates

They're not pirates they're counterfeiters! pirates just copy software illegally and make no pretence that it is genuine when passing it on, counterfeiters copy the software, the packaging and try to pass it off as genuine.

It's doubtful that in China the full retail price would have ever been received by Microsoft anyway.

[Apocalypse Later]

Alleged?

The "alleged ringleaders" were tried, found guilty and sentenced. That means they are no longer "alleged". You can drop the ass-covering language once the perps are sent away.

[kissingthecarpet]

I imagine

they use similar accounting methods to the RIAA

[adnim]

Mmmm,

"According to the firm, the gang was responsible for manufacturing and distributing more than an estimated $2bn worth of “high quality counterfeit Microsoft software”."

Where as Microsoft sell legitimate copies of poor quality software. I can only guess the counterfeiters must have fixed the bugs before selling it.

[KenBW2]

MS anti-piracy associate general counsel David Finn

That has to be the Longest Title Ever.

And can I be the first to say, did I read "High Quality" and "Microsoft Software" in the same sentence?

Paris, because she likes things to be long.

[Mark Finn]

Congratulations MS. 11 innocents to death for your egos.

This is China (and I write as one within the country). Those arrested might possibly have been ringleaders. Those charged and sentenced were almost certainly not.

No-one with money here ever goes to prison. Standard operating practice is to slip the local chief of police (or the minister for justice (Hah) if the case is serious enough) a red envelope, at which point the police grab some unfortunate migrant worker of the right height./age/gender from the street, clean him/her up and see to the switch.

The only exceptions are where someone has managed to embarrass senior party members, at which point no-one dares get involved at any price.

If those arrested were guilty of piracy at all (quite probable) they most likely never were ringleaders and those currently held certainly aren't.

[Anonymous Coward]

An improvement? Well yes.....

"high quality counterfeit Microsoft software"

The genuine stuff could hardly be called high quality.

[Anonymous Coward]

HQ? MS?

"....the gang was responsible for manufacturing and distributing more than an estimated $2bn worth of “high quality counterfeit Microsoft software”..."

they cannae have been very convincing copies of microsoft software, if they were 'high quality'. no doubt that's what gave the game away.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects]

Don't they mean: "Alledged"?

“Unfortunately, software counterfeiting is a global, illegal business without borders," said MS anti-piracy associate general counsel David Finn. "Criminals may be on the other side of the globe and may not even speak the same language, but they prey upon customers and partners all over the world.”

Like the poor teacher they shot last time, this gang of crooks might be innocent. How will Microsoft in all its largesse of cleaning house on our behalf, stand up straight when it turns out that this batch of disappeared turn out to be innocent too.

The price of doing business with the worst criminals since Stalin and Hitler got together, can't be too off putting for such nice people, it would seem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe it when I see it...

The test will be if microsoft sales improve by $2bn dollars in the next fiscal! I can imagine the excuses when they don't... Hopefully this will drive a move to free/libre softwares.

[David Hancock]

High Quality ???1?!?1!!???!

>> “...high quality counterfeit Microsoft software...”.

So the counterfeiters are actually fixing the software? Marvellous! Anyone got a .torrent link?

[michael]

“high quality counterfeit Microsoft software”???

that is such a good joke I nealy wet my self!!! like microsoft ever had any high quality software

[amanfromMars]

China's XXXXPonential Growth Factor ..... AIDNA Profiled

"This is China .... No-one with money here ever goes to prison." .... By Mark Finn Posted Friday 2nd January 2009 14:59 GMT

Ahha. Ye Olde, New World Wall Street Banker Model. Good to see the Chinese playing the Game so well, which doesn't bode well for Uncle Sam staying in Charge of Powerful Control, as they are exceptionally Gifted and Quick Remote Learners. And they will See the Vulnerability that delivers Systems Meltdown and avoid it...... which Opens up another Global Front of Massive Leading Opportunity.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hanging's too good for them

Considering China's sterling treatment of their "free" citizens (And I do use the term loosely) going to prison is redundant. I remember hearing an old story once about a fellow who escaped from Chinese prison and ended up coming back-he had more freedom on the inside.

Jokes and MS bashing aside, we're not talking about some old lady who ripped a few tracks for her grandkids, we're talking about professional organized crime depriving a legitimate business of a substantial amount of its revenue, which is at least in part what causes inflated prices, and funneling billions of dollars to foreign pirates in a hostile nation doesn't do the economy much good either.

In any case if someone caused me to lose that kind of money I'd skip court altogether and just strangle them with my bare hands.

[Anonymous Coward]

lmao ..

A very small victory indeed - I've just spent xmas in China and I saw mega stores full of pirate DVD's, software, clothes etc - counterfeiting is the accepted norm.

Also I did notice the DVD's in the Tesco's stores where exactly the same as those available in counterfeit stores, I don't know it they were copies, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dodgy? Surely not.

" ...which included dodgy copies of Office and Windows Vista and XP ..."

I would have thought anything holding a copy of Vista could be described as dodgy irrespective of the source.

[P. Lee]

re: high-quality MS software

Actually it was probably better quality than the MS-supplied retail software. Pirates tend to provide well-patched versions of the software.

Of course it wasn't fake software - the packaging may have been fake, the license keys may not have been generated by Microsoft, but the software was Microsoft's.

Don't let MS shirk responsibility for that part of it!

[DutchOven]

Typo, surely?

"Criminals may be on the other side of the globe and may not even speak the same language, but they prey upon customers and partners all over the world.”

For a moment, I thought that "criminals" was a typo and should have been "Redmond".

Mine's the one with Windows for Workgroups on DVD in the pocket.

[Mark]

re: Can't be arsed to read article...

But you COULD be arsed typing in.

Because you wanted to show up how big a prick you are?