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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

#21

Post by jamroom »

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.

But that also includes the OS License if I am reading the article correctly. The value of a replacement for the OS is the cost to download it from MS.

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

#22

Post by aresant »

it is sad and amusing that at least three comments on this thread point out that the wapo article is substantially incomplete.

From the original LaTimes article:

"In 2013, federal authorities intercepted shipments of 28,000 restore discs that Lundgren had manufactured in China and sent to his sales partner in Florida. The discs had labels nearly identical to the discs provided by Dell for its computers and had the Windows and Dell logos."

Oh. Well that changes things substantially - copyright infringement on discs created in China in bulk looks a bit fishy and more malicious than the wapo points out.

What if the discs were rooted?

What if their intent was to charge the other recyclers $10 a pop vs the $25 msft charged for the same thing?

I bet all those things were discussed in the courtroom and I'd love to see a really good source to understand this case vs watching the media try to wind up the pitchfork brigade as usual.

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

#23

Post by murph-almighty »

zelon88 wrote: post #12
vuln wrote: post #5

Gizmodo[1] added this -- "Unfortunately, in what seems to have been a huge mistake, the 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…

You're absolutely right. This guy obviously deserves to spent the next 15 years in jail because his startup practically gave away disks with someone else's logo on it that even the original copyright owner doesn't charge money for.

15 months

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

#24

Post by [deleted] »

zelon88 wrote: post #12
vuln wrote: post #5

Gizmodo[1] added this -- "Unfortunately, in what seems to have been a huge mistake, the 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…

You're absolutely right. This guy obviously deserves to spent the next 15 years in jail because his startup practically gave away disks with someone else's logo on it that even the original copyright owner doesn't charge money for.

[deleted]

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

#25

Post by staticautomatic »

aresant wrote: post #22

it is sad and amusing that at least three comments on this thread point out that the wapo article is substantially incomplete. From the original LaTimes article: "In 2013, federal authorities intercepted shipments of 28,000 restore discs that Lundgren had manufactured in China and sent to his sales partner in Florida. The discs had labels nearly identical to the discs provided by Dell for its computers and had the Wi…

You could always request a copy of the trial transcript from the court.

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

#26

Post by gowld »

ada1981 wrote: post #8
dingaling wrote: post #3

I'm in two minds over this. First, it's ridiculous that someone is being jailed for 15 months for trying to make it easier to keep using older PCs and reducing waste. On the other hand that's the risk one takes when dabbling in the world of proprietary software. Where discouraging people from upgrading is seen as a threat to revenue and is attacked accordingly. Had he printed 34,000 Linux disks we'd never have had th…

Does the license prevent people from downloading and distributing it explicitly? Curious what is going on there. I wonder if one could sell a USB configured to simply connect to the internet and download the software automatically.

The discs exist because they work on broken computers. A USB downloader would be useless for the tech-unsavvy customers of the CD

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

#27

Post by codetrotter »

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.

The $25 includes the cost of a Windows license. The restore disks Lundgren was intending to distribute required the user to be in possession of a license already.

Lundgren should not have been sentenced to prison for this. At most he should have been punished for trademark infringement.

It’s a god damn travesty that we have judges who don’t seem to understand the very important technical details of the court cases they are judging in.

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

#28

Post by [deleted] »

jamroom wrote: post #21
treis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

But that also includes the OS License if I am reading the article correctly. The value of a replacement for the OS is the cost to download it from MS.

[deleted]

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

#29

Post by gowld »

aresant wrote: post #22

it is sad and amusing that at least three comments on this thread point out that the wapo article is substantially incomplete. From the original LaTimes article: "In 2013, federal authorities intercepted shipments of 28,000 restore discs that Lundgren had manufactured in China and sent to his sales partner in Florida. The discs had labels nearly identical to the discs provided by Dell for its computers and had the Wi…

> What if the discs were rooted?

They weren't. What if he murdered someone? He didn't.

> What if their intent was to charge the other recyclers $10 a pop vs the $25 msft charged for the same thing?

So? It's not a crime for Amazon to charge lower shipping than Newegg.

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

#30

Post by reimertz »

As a CEO, you can have a business model that is ethically and morally wrong without getting into jail.

As a CEO, you can ignore obvious security flaws leading to 100 million social security numbers getting leaked without getting into jail.

As a CEO, you can sexually harass your employees without getting into jail.

Try and save the world by repurpose old computers, causing one of the biggest companies in the world to maybe lose 0.0000001% of their revenue and you're fucked.

Shame on you, Microsoft.

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