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Never ones to shy away from an uphill battle, Microsoft has recently been taking new steps to combat software piracy in China. They’ve launched a program, euphemistically called “Windows Genuine Advantage,” which blacks out users' screens if it discovers that they’re running pirated Microsoft software.
In China, a country where a large majority of computers are running pirated software, this move has, predictably, caused quite an uproar.
The China Daily quoted Dong Zhengwei, a lawyer, as saying “[Microsoft is] the biggest hacker in China with its intrusion into users’ computer systems without their agreement or any judicial authority … I respect the right of Microsoft to protect its intellectual property, but … They should target producers and sellers of fake software, not users.”
The quote references the fact that in China, a lot of the software sold commercially is actually pirated, meaning that users might be at risk of a blackout without even knowing it.
Is Microsoft just protecting their IP, or have they gone too far? Let us know after the jump.
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HeartBurnKid
October 23, 2008 at 1:44pm
Frankly, when a measure like this trips up pirates, I don't particularly care. Should have thought of this before you pirated. Besides which, there will probably be a crack soon anyway.
I start caring when things like this cause problems for legitimate users -- which is fairly likely with something like this. So I don't think something like this should be out there, but I have no sympathy for the folks who are feeling it at the moment.
