Angus Kidman10 May 2007, 4:24 AM
Old-fashioned software piracy -- the kind that uses actual media rather than P2P networks -- is alive and well down under, it seems. Two brothers in Ballina on the NSW North Coast have been raided by police, who have seized 5,000 CDs.
 Pirate CD factory: (credit videoblog.ablog.ro) |
Old-fashioned software piracy -- the kind that uses actual media rather than peer-to-peer networks -- is alive and well down under, it seems. Two brothers in Ballina on the NSW North Coast have been raided by police, who seized 5,000 CDs and DVDs featuring pirated software, games and music.
News of the bust came from a not-entirely-surprising source -- Microsoft, a vehement prosecutor of software pirates. The company's Windows and Office products were amongst those allegedly being duplicated. (No word on whether Vista was included, though given its lacklustre sales to date, we have our doubts.)
Allegedly, the criminally-minded pair were enjoying the beach lifestyle while selling their warez online. "Operators in a regional town, such as Ballina, can now impact honest resellers across Australia," MS Australia IP director Vanessa Hutley observed in a comma-laden statement from Microsoft.
While this afforded the brothers a relaxing lifestyle, that approach also made it easier for investigators from the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) and Music Industry Piracy Investigation (MIPI) to make some covert purchases and then bust the duplicator who were apparently not aware that WHOIS exists, allowing anyone to see the original registrant of a website domain name.
We'll be hearing much more on the subject of piracy next week, when the Business Software Association releases its annual figures on global software piracy (which works roughly like this: estimate how many people have pirated software, multiply it by retail product price and scream a lot).
However, it seems clear that for many users, there's no ethical challenges involved in using pirated software.
At a packed seminar designed to spruik Adobe's Creative Suite 3 in Melbourne this morning, I overheard one attendee musing over a survey question asking where their Adobe software was purchased: "Can I just put that I downloaded it through LimeWire?"
If customers can happily show up to a free seminar for tips on using their illegitimate products, then clearly there's a lot of work to do.