How Microsoft helped imprison a man for 'counterfeiting' software it gives away for free
Devin Coldewey@techcrunch / Apr 25, 2018
n a sickening concession to bad copyright law and Microsoft’s bottom line over basic technical truths and common sense, Eric Lundgren will spend 15 months in prison for selling discs that let people reinstall Windows on licensed machines. A federal appeals court this week upheld the sentence handed down in ignorance by a Florida district judge, for a crime the man never committed.
Now, to be clear, Lundgren did commit a crime, and admitted as much — but not the crime he was convicted for, the crime Microsoft alleges he did, the crime that carries a year-plus prison term. Here’s what happened.
In 2012 feds seized a shipment of discs, which they determined were counterfeit copies of Windows, heading to the U.S., where they were to be sold to retailers by Lundgren. U.S. Prosecutors, backed by Microsoft’s experts, put him on the hook for about $8.3 million — the retail price of Windows multiplied by the number of discs seized.
The only problem with that was that these weren’t counterfeit copies of Windows, and they were worth almost nothing. The confusion is understandable — here’s why.
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What Lundgren did was have thousands of these recovery discs printed so that repair and refurbishing shops could sell them for cheap to anyone who can’t make their own. No need to go call Alienware customer service, just go to a computer store and grab a disc for a couple bucks.
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more: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/25/how-microsoft-helped-imprison-a-man-for-counterfeiting-software-it-gives-away-for-free/
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