Microsoft Tracks Down Windows 7 and 8 Pirates, Files Lawsuits

[Batu69]

More than 1,000 copies of Windows activated by same pirates

   Microsoft is no longer willing to tolerate software piracy

 

Windows and Office continue to be impacted by software piracy, but at the same time, Microsoft goes on with its fight against those who illegally activate its products, and the company has this time tracked down someone who did this with no less than 1,000 copies of the operating system and the productivity suite.

Before you call this pirate “stupid,” there’s something you should have in mind: the chances are that the one involved in this case is a retailer that sells Windows PCs and thus activates them with licenses which according to Microsoft were stolen from its supply chain.

Individuals rarely activate so many licenses, so they’re not brought into Microsoft’s crosshair, but whenever someone pirates a thousands of copies of Windows and Office, that’s something that the company needs to take care of.

Windows Vista, 7 and 8 got cracked

In lawsuits filled with a Seattle court, Microsoft explains that impacted software includes Windows 7, Vista, and 8, as well as Office 2010 and 2013. The company has already managed to track down the pirate’s IP and is now asking the judge for authorization to find its identity and make him pay for what he did.

“Microsoft's cyberforensics have identified over one thousand product activations originating from IP address 66.51.73.111 ('the IP Address'), which is presently assigned to Earthlink Inc., and which, on information and belief, is being used by the Defendants in furtherance of the unlawful conduct alleged herein,” the court documents reveal.

According to the company, these new findings might be in some way related to previous cases of software piracy and it appears that the same IP is being used to activate more copies of Windows and Office these days.

“On information and belief, Defendants have been and continue to be involved in installing counterfeit and infringing copies of Microsoft's software and/or related components,” it noted.

Certainly, Microsoft is no longer willing to tolerate software piracy, especially when it comes to such a big number of product keys, so it’ll be interesting to see how this case evolves.

Article source

[solitario]

Oh Shit!

[Recruit]

What about " no data collected during activation " ?

[oliverjia]

Piracy for individual is one thing, piracy for commercial profit is another.

[steven36]

8 hours ago, oliverjia said:

Piracy for individual is one thing, piracy for commercial profit is another.

Every time this makes the news its always 2 factors ,  they went after like after someone that activated a 1000 or more copies with KMS and there from the USA , its not really new news they will hunt you down if you do.  There's no way in heck they would take every user to court  that activates a copy of windows illegally they would waste too much money on court cost most people who pirate are poor and Microsoft would never get any money from it. If they wanted to stop piracy Windows 10 would be the perfect O/S to do it all they got too is send you a update that deactivates you ,They could even do it in Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 just send you a update that if you dont take it you dont get no more updates .They done it before but pirates figured out a way around it .  As long as there focused on getting numbers for Windows 10 there's not much to worry about . When they stop giving it away they could do something too mess people up but that dont mean crackers want figure away around that too even if Microsoft bothers to beef up Anti cracking  again .

[humble3d]

MSFT is like the mafia...They have a long memory...