Forum: Community Center


Subject: OT: Software GOOD, Warez BAD

DCArt opened this issue on Mar 09, 2005 ยท 31 posts


XENOPHONZ posted Wed, 09 March 2005 at 3:01 PM

Attached Link: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/09/26/piracy_unlimited/

Very well -- here's another:

*Or maybe not. Asked about the glaring lack of a copyright enforcement clause in the new deal, Microsoft president and CEO Steve Ballmer did a quick Nixonian shuffle.

"Certainly, software piracy rates in China are high, but there is nothing in the agreement specifically around that," Ballmer told a reporter from Reuters shortly after the June announcement. Rather, the company was pouring its resources into China's nascent proprietary software industry, knowing that it would be in China's long-term interest to secure "a good domestic market" for "intellectual property."

Although most news accounts depicted the Ballmer response as a cop-out, there's at least one other explanation for his comments -- and Microsoft's strategy. Between copyright battles at home and the challenge to conquer emerging markets abroad, the company may have good reasons to revamp its longtime hard-line stance on copyright enforcement. Indeed, there are some who make the case that, in a place like China where the competition in the software market features both state-backed companies and open-source software companies that allow public access to their code, a proprietary software company such as Microsoft might actually benefit from illegal copying. In other words, casting a blind eye toward piracy may simply be good business.*

Emphasis mine.

since your "common knowledge" is infact unknown to the "common people".

Oh, it's common enough knowledge that the story has been reported by pretty much all of the major news sources.

Anyone that's halfway informed on the subject would know this.

please refine your tone from being offensive as well. I merely asked for information. not for you to get superior about it.

Interesting. You begin this discourse with an implied accusation about "being offensive", and then you demand that I moderate my tone......how odd.

As for my "getting superior about it" -- there is nothing "superior" involved here. It's simply a case of being right.

Something To Do At 3:00AM