Redmond claims people are turning themselves in
Software giant Microsoft claims that it has launched an initiative to curb
software piracy because its own customers have asked it to take action.
Vipul Pant, director of Microsoft's "genuine software
initiative" claimed that consumers were apparently flooding Redmond with
complaints that they have been victim of piracy. He said that if the punters grass up the pirates then Microsoft will send the
boys around to deal with them.The company has also initiated civil legal
actions on errant re-sellers and involved the police in conducting surprise
checks on known piracy vending locations.
Pant said that since January, he had received more than 2,000
complaints in India, and more than 150,000 from consumers across the
world. We would have thought it unusual that a company would ring up
Redmond and say “look we are running pirated software”. It is a bit like
robbing a sweet shop and then going up to the coppers and offering the buy the
chocolate afterwards.
Pant seems to think they are getting in touch with Microsoft because they are
finding their pirated copies have embedded malware. KPMG in a whitepaper figured out that 59 percent of crack tools and keygens
they surveyed had embedded malware, said Pant.