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E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

washingtonpost.com

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Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#161

Post by kbenson »

natch wrote: post #115
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can have a business model that is ethically and morally wrong without getting into jail Rule of law. You go to jail for breaking the law, not for being unethical or immoral. Societies which forget this distinction fall fast. (Legislation, turning morals and ethics into laws, is the intermediating process your complaint more properly addresses.)

You're missing the whole crux of the story. The supposed law broken here (none, actually) is based on multiple judges being absolutely clueless about technology and refusing the regard the testimony of an expert witness who was trying to set the first judge straight.

The other thing that makes this story different than most the others you hear about is that there wasn't multiple layers of indirection and middle-management working on vague ideas of what was wanted by their executive management (wink-wink-nudge-nudge).

That's one of the sad truths about life. Those that break the law, or do things seen as unsavory, take pains to hide their actions, motivations, and responsibility. Those attempting to do good that inadvertently break the law don't take those steps because they didn't think they were doing anything wrong, or that if people thought they were they could of course explain away the misunderstanding.

What you're left with is this, where the majority of corporate malfeasance goes unpunished or severely under-punished, but the accidental minor criminal gets jail time. It's definitely a failure of the legal system, but how do you address the fact that those that worry about being caught up in the legal system will be more prepared for if they eventually are?

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#162

Post by jonathankoren »

pweissbrod wrote: post #44
Hasz wrote: post #14

From the article "“These sales of counterfeit operating systems,” Microsoft lawyer Bonnie MacNaughton wrote to the judge, “displaced Microsoft’s potential sales of genuine operating systems.” But Lundgren’s disks had no licenses and were intended for computers that already had licenses." and even worse, "Hurley decided Lundgren’s 28,000 restore disks had a value of $700,000, and that dollar amount qualified Lundgren…

I dont quite understand the basic legal details behind this. Say I buy a computer with windows pre-installed that means the OS license cost is bundled in to the price of the machine. Say I have a computer without windows, or maybe an older cheaper version of windows. Is it correct that these restore disks arent a utility to get a free new copy of windows? Just trying to understand

My understanding is that these disks are pretty much just a utility. If they do have a copy of a minimal OS, it is locked by a authorization key that is not provided. You must provide your own key, and the Windows license is tied to an individual machine and fully transferable for the life of the machine.

Reusing licenses is a different problem, and one that also plagues full install disks.

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#163

Post by patja »

cornholio wrote: post #126
scott00 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's two stages of the legal process that are important to understand here: what was the illegal act, and what is the sentence for that illegal act. The illegal act was a copyright violation: he made and distributed copies of copyrighted material without the consent of the copyright owner. I would be inclined to argue that his use was fair use, but based on what I know about copyright law, that argument is probabl…

> (2) OEM Windows disks that Microsoft sells for $25. These come with a license (unlike the defendant's disks) but do come with a physical disk. I'm confused, what exactly are these, where can a private individual buy one? A Windows license key with (no media) is priced around $120, while an OEM license with no support is in the $50-$90 area, depending on the business relationship with Microsoft. If individuals were…

I think these OEM disks are the media that is sold through the system builder channel within Microsoft's OEM licensing model. These are intended for small-scale mom and pop PC builders who are obligated to provide the technical product support: Microsoft product support will not help you if you have one of these licenses. It used to be that anyone could buy these through resellers such as Newegg. I've never seen them for $25 though.

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#164

Post by meesterdude »

> despite the software being freely available online and only compatible with valid Windows licenses

I don't see why someone needs to go to jail for 15-months over this - especially given his reasonings.

If you thought microsoft had turned a new page - think again. Different tactics, same morals.

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#165

Post by RIMR »

treis wrote: post #18
sevensor wrote: post #7

Sounds like this guy made a really bad decision in putting the Windows and Dell logos on the disks, and then selling them (albeit for $0.25, which would seem to just barely cover the cost of production.) But that bad decision pales in comparison to the court's decision to value at $25 what Microsoft was giving away for free. If anything, he was saving them a significant amount of bandwidth.

Microsoft wasn't giving them away for free though. According to the article, they get $25 for each disk from computer manufacturers.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

Anyone with a license can download the ISO. Even then, you need the license to activate it once it's installed.

This guy was just providing the ISO burned onto a disk, with instruction for the user on how to activate it with their existing license.

Microsoft lost zero revenue - they just don't want people extending the life of their license, because they would rather people needlessly purchase additional licenses...

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#166

Post by slim »

jonathankoren wrote: post #145
monocasa wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> microsoft isn’t pressing charges against him in this case. “These sales of counterfeit operating systems,” Microsoft lawyer Bonnie MacNaughton wrote to the judge, “displaced Microsoft’s potential sales of genuine operating systems.” But Lundgren’s disks had no licenses and were intended for computers that already had licenses."

I’m really confused on what a “counterfeit operating system” would be. The only thing I can think of is some Linux distro made to look like Windows.

Nowadays counterfeit means the vendor says it's counterfeit. The burden is on the buyer to prove it's not

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#167

Post by cptskippy »

unethical_ban wrote: post #104
cptskippy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is an unabashedly sinister misinformation campaign by someone who didn't read the article or understand what this guy was doing. He wasn't distributing restore disks with refurbished PCs. He manufactured 28000 Restore Disks containing Microsoft Windows and was selling them. He justified his actions by saying they were only to be used on licensed machines. That's like me selling a backup copy of your Book and…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those restore disks only work if the machine is already licensed. You can go download Windows 10 ISOs from microsoft.com right now, but you can't install it without a key. To use your analogy, it would be like you redistributing an encrypted book file that the publisher had emailed me when I bought my hard copy, but I couldn't open it anyway unless I had the key from the back cover.

Windows can be installed without a license but must be activated online using a valid license within a certain time frame (128 days?).

Windows 10 activation is done by device fingerprinting to match a license which is different from how windows was activated in the past. With previous versions of Windows you activated by providing a product key.

Restore and Recovery discs are different form standard installation media, the kind you can download for free from Microsoft.

R/R discs are custom builds from the OEM, who is required to have a software distribution license from Microsoft, and don't usually prompt for license activation. They circumvent the need for the user to input a key by either storing it on a recovery partition, in the BIOS, or hardcoding it on the media.

    >  To use your analogy, it would be like you redistributing an encrypted book file that the publisher had emailed me when I bought my hard copy, but I couldn't open it anyway unless I had the key from the back cover.
Not just distributing, selling without permission of the publisher and decryption keys are widely available online.

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#168

Post by risotto_groupon »

jonathankoren wrote: post #145
monocasa wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> microsoft isn’t pressing charges against him in this case. “These sales of counterfeit operating systems,” Microsoft lawyer Bonnie MacNaughton wrote to the judge, “displaced Microsoft’s potential sales of genuine operating systems.” But Lundgren’s disks had no licenses and were intended for computers that already had licenses."

I’m really confused on what a “counterfeit operating system” would be. The only thing I can think of is some Linux distro made to look like Windows.

the [28,000] disks had "labels nearly identical to the discs provided by Dell for its computers and had the Windows and Dell logos," the Times wrote. As a result, Lundgren pleaded guilty to two of 21 charges, conspiracy and copyright infringement. He told the paper, "If I had just written 'Eric's Restore Disc' on there, it would have been fine."

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#169

Post by JumpCrisscross »

natch wrote: post #115
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can have a business model that is ethically and morally wrong without getting into jail Rule of law. You go to jail for breaking the law, not for being unethical or immoral. Societies which forget this distinction fall fast. (Legislation, turning morals and ethics into laws, is the intermediating process your complaint more properly addresses.)

You're missing the whole crux of the story. The supposed law broken here (none, actually) is based on multiple judges being absolutely clueless about technology and refusing the regard the testimony of an expert witness who was trying to set the first judge straight.

> The supposed law broken here (none, actually) is based on multiple judges being absolutely clueless about technology

The problem is we criminally charge commercial infringement. The defendant put others' logos on disks he sold. This shouldn't result in jail time, but that's what the law says. The problem isn't the court, it's the law.

Re: E-waste recycler loses appeal on computer restore disks, must serve prison term

#170

Post by adventured »

> Randall Newman, Lundgren’s lawyer on the appeal, said there was no basis to seek a rehearing from the full 11th Circuit. Lundgren said an appeal to the Supreme Court would be a costly long shot.

The tech community should band together and fund Lundgren taking this to the Supreme Court. It's worth trying to stop this precedent.

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