Radiogrrl

August 19, 2009 at 7:54am

Would it be legal to use a copy of Windows intended for sale in the UK on a US computer? Could you register and activate it?

 I don't know all the legal intracacies related to software and digital information, but I do know that in the case of hardware (and consumer electronics in general) merchandise intended to be sold in other countries that's sold in the US illegally (proper tarriffs etc. for imported goods not paid) is called "grey goods". Some of the deep-discount electronics stores that were around and popular in the 80's such as Crazy Eddie and Uncle Steve often carried grey goods which enabled them to offer "We'll beat any price" policies and significantly undercut other retailers pricing on popular items.

This all took place before the rise of the PC, so what I'm talking about here is mainly televisions and high-end audio equipment, but I can't imagine that consumer copies of Windows 7 (that is, the physical merchandise intended for sale in UK stores) would be legal to buy or use in the US because no US taxes or other importation fees are being paid on them. In addition, because of different pricing schemes in different countries I'd expect Microsoft to do whatever it could to prevent such use as well.

That said, I also know these laws have been tweaked a lot since then and I'm not quite sure how it might play out in terms of the illegality of selling or using a physical copy of Windows 7 in a country or region other than it was intended for versus how the law impacts the sale and transfer of the non-physical digital information the physical sale item contains.    

tsamhammer

August 19, 2009 at 7:14am

If you put "£122 to dollars" in google search, it comes out to 199.9946 dollars, which would mean those values published by microsoft are not "half price" but pretty much exactly how much they will cost in dollars.

 Just goes to show you the strength of the british pound.

camskip

August 19, 2009 at 6:34am

I guess that MS wants to appease the Brits by screwing the Americans.  If the situation was opposite, the Brits would complaining that MS was biased because they are based in the US.

PCIV

August 19, 2009 at 6:10am

I'm guessing they still think the exchange rate is at 2.2 USD for a pound.

muskrat72

August 19, 2009 at 5:47am

Is Microsoft trying to piss off America! What is the sense behind this move?