Oddly enough... I'm in complete agreement with MS about this method of anti-piracy. Some negative behaviors//crimes cannot be
legislated out of existence, but must instead be
ostracized into nothingness.
Yeah, sounds crazy, but piracy isn't a criminal problem, it's a socioeconomic problem. Economic (as in the case of Adobe Photoshop's continuing price-hiking making their piracy problem worse rather than better), and social, where piracy is sometimes seen as the cool thing to do.
Imagine the situation once MS starts locking out pirated copies of Windows from feature updates.
"Hey Bob, the new MS Program X was unlocked today!"
"It did? I don't have it."
"You don't? Did you pirate your copy of Windows?"
"Er, yes."
"l00ser!"
Well, that won't be the word-for-word, but I think you get the drift. MS is trying to make a social stigma out of piracy by bribing users with new features. Not a new approach, but one rarely used in this day and age of rampant lawyerism.
Now, as for China... that's a whole other kettle of fish. The Chinese are the International Grand Masters of Organized Software Piracy. I oughta know, they yoinked enough copies of DxR's products when I was working back there. I remember that the most difficult part of supporting our Chinese users was determining who was honestly needing help and who was trying to scam the hell out of us. Diffuclt in e-mail, let me tell you.
Piracy as a social stigma won't work over there, period. It's a cultural thing, and their culture is quite different when it comes to intellectual property. Namely, since they have so
much piracy, and on such a large scale, the software methods used to stop American//Occidental 'casual pirates' won't work. Some pirate group will crack the software and then distribute it
widely, selling it to the average Joe for the equivalent of a buck for a CD.
To stop piracy over there, you have to stop the huge distributors.... and there's a LOT of them, and they don't get hassled much by the goverment that I've seen or heard of.
Sticky situation MS is in. Me, I'm of two minds here, as I have worked for and had my meals paid for by my company's software, but I also cannot stand MS.
You know what the funny thing about all this is? All of this piracy of Windows that's going on is totally MS's own fault. You older geeks may well remember back in the days of Windows 2.0 and 3.x when MS 'carefully ignored' piracy of their operating system. There was a reason for that--they wanted mindshare... and they got it. Boy did they ever. Now it's biting them in the ass.
