Thanks for letting us pirate

Vlad Mayzel:

How a president of supposedly civilized country can publicly and proudly acknowledge theft? I am sure it is all true and I think an estimate of 70% of the software being pirated in Romania is grossly underestimated. But even if that is the fact of life there, president’s staff could make up something smarter than that for him. No wonder Gates didn’t utter a word. It would be very interesting to know what he was thinking all that time while he was smiling. I doubt that Mr. President would ever want to hear that ;-)

ChristopherColumbus:

A friend who is currently establishing a company in China recently met a senior Microsoft official there who has said that they are not interested in stopping piracy in China because piracy is imperative to stop open source gaining ground.

Anonymous:

As far as I see Mr President has aknowledged a truth. Somethign that all the officials presetn there were/are aware of, including Billy.
End of story.

Anonymous:

Reading all these comments, I don't really understand your frustration. Basescu, aside from giving the impression that he is encouraging theft, is actually speaking the truth. Piracy did help raise the level of education (of those interested in learning, of course)...

ym2004:

"Mr. President" is known - and mostly appreciated, for his blunt approach to conventional rules of diplomacy, personal security, and so on.

Very unconventional dude. Even though in a country like Romania a clean politician would never get that high up, so Basescu is most probably as dirty as everybody else - at least he doesn't have the bad habit of talking for 2+ hours without actually saying anything.

Compared to previous presidents Romania had, he's ok.
First diplomatic blunder i've heard from him was worse than this one - it was a reply to a comentary by the Russian ambasador, concerning US military bases on Romanian soil.
Basescu's reply was that the Red Army ocupied Romania for 15 years, and nobody asked them when they are leaving or why they were there.

Crude, but efficient.

And yes, piracy is a fact of life in Romania. When a VERY good monthly salary is around $500, what do you expect ? How could you afford to buy any software ?
The Romanian IT specialists grew up with pirated software - and most are better than any "specialist" in the West, thank you very much.

People don't usually buy pirated software - only stupid people do that.
Most is borrowed or downloaded - usually you have relative, or a friend, or a friend of a friend, who "knows about computers", he has a pack of software kits, and comes to your house and installs a windows, and office, and whatever you need.

Those charging money for this, or for pirated software are rare - and should be jailed anyway.

Anonymous:

The supposition this is a civilized country, is wrong. True, 70% IS underestimated. This president has no ideea what diplomacy is. You want to know what Gates was thinking? Let me try: "...mmm ... these romanians work for ten times less money then any others... so let this bald'guy say whatever he wants ... i'm making more money and that's all that matters... haar haaaa".

Basescu itself:

As long as Bill's bank account is larger than my national bank account, why would he be offended ?!

Bills a Crook too:

Indeed. If Vista or anything Microsoft could not be Pirated who would buy it? Most of the world cannot afford it! Even if they did buy it, you can bet it would still cost the same! Bill knowns this and that's exactly what he wants, Windows got to where it did from nothing more than Windows 95 / 98 having a dodgy password system, the password was on the CD! When you installed it you could use DOS to view it! Get the picture!

I bought windows:

Even when I was a student. But saving 6 months to get the windows was not an option for everyone.

And when you have to chose between food and software, I will always go for food ;-)

And if I can get the soft as well, why not.

So it's nothing civilized here; it's just pure economics.

Anonymous:

Well, the president is one of the biggest morrons ever! And I should know... I didn't vote for him in the first place and glad of it. Anyway, I should point out that he used to pe captain on merchant marine ships. That partially counts for his plain old stupidity, stubborness and close knowlegde of piracy. No, not computer piracy. And so you all should know, the average monthly salary of a (good) Romanian worker is just as much as the licence for Windows. And we don't eat bits for breakfast!

2am:

Billy boy knows this already. Why not admit a well known fact valid in many countries? :)

Without the piracy he wouldnt have opened this cheap center.

borat:

Romanians Hah! In my Glorious Nation of Kahzeckstan there is no piracy which will warm the hearts of nation of YooEss&Ay. Our government has filled our houses of learnings with much touted IBM PC and XT whose floppy disk systems render inferior and potentially pirate-able CD software as useless as cow on roof. This is breakthough much envied in all of eastern europe.

robotarchie:

Hah! What most bumblind idiots don't realise is that both adobe and microsoft have incorporated c-dilla into their products. Look it up! C-dilla can and does disable hardware (cd dvd burners and secter 33 of the boot record on your hard disk) when 'IT' decides that the user of the product is pirating!

C-dilla also audits your system, go have a look at their website! Its not a secret! That audit record is sent to adobe and or microsoft (depending on what you have installed) everytime you're connected to the web! They know exactly who has what and don't think for asecond that they are not cataloging this information!

All the lame hacker groups are so far behind the 8 ball on this, they still think that they are kewl cos they are making serial gens. Clueless!

Just wait until the Australian privacy laws are fully repealed by the integration of the US intellectual property laws now that Australia is fully inmeshed in the free trade agreement with the US. The future will be here real soon and if it is windows you're seriously compromised.

Anonymous:

Avast ye all!

Microsoft has a vested interest to keep piracy going - if they insisted on clamping down on priacy then no one in developing countries would use Microsoft products - they would use open source products instead!!!

Shiver me timbers!

Anonymous:

Hello everyone !! I have some problems with my latest softwares: Office 2007 and Vista. Can anyone tell me where do i have to enter this serial number: 2GGS3-7DGSH-ASSG3-RSR34 ? I do not see because i'm poor and starving !
Thx anyone ! Go USA !!!

Ms. Popa:

I'm sorry but I refuse to believe a president would be proud of doing something illegal, especially in front of somebody as influential as Bill Gates.

Romanian people aren't stupid. Poor and desperate maybe, but not idiotic.

It is probable that Basescu said that that pirazy helped start things off.. it's true. Please, who HASN'T heard of somebody so poor they can't afford a keyboard... nevertheless a legit Windows copy.
But I'm pretty sure the president was kidding, making light of a situation that's universal.

I think he was trying to accentuate the fact that even though we're a poor country, romanian people are known for their IT skills. (do you want to know how many actually work for Microsoft?)

Anonymous:

Is this supposed to be "journalism"? Or did 'The Onion' start a sister publication?

ym2004:

"Mr. President" is known - and mostly appreciated, for his blunt approach to conventional rules of diplomacy, personal security, and so on.

Very unconventional dude. Even though in a country like Romania a clean politician would never get that high up, so Basescu is most probably as dirty as everybody else - at least he doesn't have the bad habit of talking for 2+ hours without actually saying anything.

Compared to previous presidents Romania had, he's ok.
First diplomatic blunder i've heard from him was worse than this one - it was a reply to a comentary by the Russian ambasador, concerning US military bases on Romanian soil.
Basescu's reply was that the Red Army ocupied Romania for 15 years, and nobody asked them when they are leaving or why they were there.

Crude, but efficient.

And yes, piracy is a fact of life in Romania. When a VERY good monthly salary is around $500, what do you expect ? How could you afford to buy any software ?
The Romanian IT specialists grew up with pirated software - and most are better than any "specialist" in the West, thank you very much.

People don't usually buy pirated software - only stupid people do that.
Most is borrowed or downloaded - usually you have relative, or a friend, or a friend of a friend, who "knows about computers", he has a pack of software kits, and comes to your house and installs a windows, and office, and whatever you need.

Those charging money for this, or for pirated software are rare - and should be jailed anyway.

Anonymous:

Was Bill gates gagged? Did he have a parrot stuck down his throat? Or did a romanian vampire suck out all of his blood before the meeting?

Tim:

Perhaps it's more like the 'starter packs' that drug dealers (and interestingly, symantec and other security software companies) use - give the poor fools a taste of the product for free, then start charging their addicts through the nose for the product ;-)

Anonymous:

Yaarrr Haar Haaar and a bottle of rum!

Too bad billy boy. It's back to giving loot away at the foundation for you...

Ha Haaar!

hugo emario:

Bill Gates is a parrot

Potoroo:

In an article some months ago on the integration of former East European communist countries into the EU, the Economist noted that "Romania just doesn't get it... they still smoke in meetings with clients and cite official corruption as a competitive advantage..."

However, that aside, it is interesting to note an official acknowledgment of something the software industry has denied for years (whilst simultaneously grossly inflating the rate of piracy and its impact), namely that piracy has an upside for them in that it introduces significant numbers of people to their software who otherwise would have no access to it.

But I doubt Bill was unduly concerned, as he would undoubtedly expect Brussels to drag Romania into line on matters of intellectual property as with everything else.

James Piratul:

The guy actually said something like "I remember the early 90s when we didn't have any copyright laws, Microsoft Office was probably THE most pirated program on the Romanian market. He didn't say that piracy is accepted or encouraged today. Move on, nothing to see here. And I'm sure Billie is glad that the young generation of that period didn't discover the open source alternative instead - they're now successful IT professionals that are using legal version of MS products because of that.

bdp:

if they are so worried about people stealing their software then lock it out better, seriously... i mean dont have an online activation anymore, that makes it easier. and to get a product key for it to even install they have to call microsoft, i mean just give them a cd key that they have to call into microsoft to get a prod key to get it, then once it installs then they can activate it over the net, but seriously dont hide the activation in the vbs files that just makes it easier for people to find. and if you really wanted to be really sweet about it.. make all activations different. like say it reads a hash on a file on the drive or the serial number mixed with the hash of a file encrypted at 128 bit. but only get parts of that code and make sure it is in alpha numberic. seriously, if they are so worried about people stealing software, do it right, dont act like you playing with a bunch of kids because 3/4 of the kids as they call us are 4 times smarter than he'll ever be in this matter, he just goes along for the ride.

PC-Oldtimer:

I think it fitting that Microsoft products are being pirated when Bill did it himself years ago when he stole CP/M to author MS-DOS....

What goes around comes around....

baietzel15:

The romanian president, Basescu, is far not as stupid as others. Piracy is a reality in Romania! Big international companies are using pirate Windows and Office in Romania. The "advantage" is bigger than others think: a romanian can use and learn how lots of programs are working and be a better IT specialist than one in another country, because he can use any software for free. The wages in Romania are VERY small, so if piracy wouldn't have been admitted (ex: US), only a few people could use a computer. How can you buy the computers basic programs if you have a wage of 400Eur/month? And this is not a isolated case! Normal people in Romania are living like this... So you better don't put so aggressive comments. There are indeed rich people who buy the software, but if they would be the only ones allowed to use Windows then Asus, Intel, AMD and other hardware manufacturers would have sales reduced to 5% of normal. :) WE, and especially I, don't intend to use pirate software, but we need to...

anonynobody (New user):

If i may quote the man Bill Gates himself regarding piracy in China:

"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Source : Los Angeles times ( http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9)



Trust me,Bill Gates knows exactly what the president is talking about and he personally acknowledges that there are lot of benifits to piracy that arent obvious,or easily quantifiable but just as valid. The above quote is testament to that fact.

@Vlad Mayzel and others: I agree lot of piracy is just plain wrong but to call it uncivillized is i think bit too strong. If i may give a book recommendation : google "Free culture" by Lawrence Lessig. It is available in print and also for free in electronic form. It gives a decent background of how (some forms of) piracy has positively shaped our culture, and indeed our civilization and how people with vested intrests have always tried to make us feel guilty for new "pirating" technologies we nowadays take for granted(such as VHS,cassette). As is happening in today's world of p2p.

All this moralizing about the president supporting piracy is just bullcrap. Barack Obama or George Bush or pretty much any democratically elected president would have said the same thing if 70% of their population were pirating software. Only difference is people in the US and the west can easily afford to pay for software while those in developing countries cant, and more importantly large corporations with large pockets and vested intrests have a large say in their government policies.

Again.Lot of piracy going on is just plain wrong but my point is the world isn't painted in just black and white.
Peace.