Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews) [LWN.net]

Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews)

Posted Feb 7, 2007 22:09 UTC (Wed) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link]

While we're at it, is "non-purchased" the new euphemism for "stolen"?

Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews)

Posted Feb 7, 2007 22:21 UTC (Wed) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link]

And "stolen" hyperbole for "unlicensed" :)

-Ross

Re: "non-purchased"

Posted Feb 7, 2007 22:21 UTC (Wed) by Cardinal_Bill (guest, #23688) [Link]

I believe that is a euphemism for what used to be called an "off-site, disaster recovery, backup, evaluation copy of software."

FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 8, 2007 8:40 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

"Stolen" historically meant "taken away from owner, depriving him or her of it". If one doesn't buy "intellectual property" (like me, who considers it an euphemism for "slavery" since it's humans being carrier for intellect AFAIK) -- this paradigm doesn't stand a chance with digital copies.

Those who like the "piracy" term might remember what was the target for historical pirates: either another country's trade fleet during wars, or _overpriced_ goods. With commoditization of e.g. pepper (which was very pricey half a thousand years ago) it just collapsed; it's the only proven way to "fight pirates". But well, those who are calling us these names are quite real pirates themselves, on their terms: Microsoft "stole" lots of things from IntelliMouse to Internet Explorer(TM).

OTOH I'm not using unlicensed software, to the best of my knowledge -- if someone would call _me_ a robber because there would be more theirs software in the world, they don't deserve to run software on my systems.

FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 8, 2007 18:37 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

There are plenty of instances of intellectual property actually being stolen. For example, Viacom alledgedly just recently stole somebody's software tutorial video, in the sense of making false claims to be the rightful owner of it. Technically, it's slander of title rather than larceny (since it's not a physical item whose location could be on somebody's property or person), but "stealing" isn't a technical term.

Just to get it straight,

Posted Feb 9, 2007 15:16 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

"Viacom alledgedly just recently stole somebody's software tutorial video,
in the sense of making false claims to be the rightful owner of it.
Technically, it's slander of title rather than larceny" -- no, it's
plagiarism. In law, slander of title is normally a claim involving real
estate in which one entity falsely claims to own another entity's
property. Plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the
language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as
one's own original work.
To avoid any plagiarism accusations, the last two phrases are from the
current respective Wikipedia articles, as of 2006.02.09 13:15 GMT-02:00.

Just to get it straight,

Posted Feb 9, 2007 17:27 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

You're clearly not seeing the allegations in this event. Viacom evidently sent youtube a DMCA notification, falsely claiming to own the tutorial video and requesting that it be removed. They never used the tutorial video or anything like it themselves, and may never have seen it. Slander of title related to IP is rarely mentioned, because usually people falsely claiming copyright ownership can be more straightfowardly demonstrated to have infringed it by distributing the work or something related.

FYI on "pirates" and "stealing"

Posted Feb 15, 2007 17:27 UTC (Thu) by alext (guest, #7589) [Link]

No it is not stolen at least in a legal sense. It is a smear of terms probably with the (original) intent of big media companies to simplify things for convicting people in the minds of others.

To steal is an act of theft and that is defined as taking something with the intention to permanently deprive. Taking a digital copy does not do that. Which is why people like me and I suppose other "precisionists" (tossers might call them pedants) don't like the term property as you don't have possession of any property only a license (the terms of which are dependent upon amongst other things location) granted to you ultimately by the people including usually the person accused of infringing.

But the concept of a license and infringement is a lot more sophisticated for your average person to come to grips with. Hence returning to the probably cause being media giants wanting to make the obtaining of convictions easier. As theft sounds a whole lot worse than "infringement" and it is a whole lot easier to understand.

"straight"?

Posted Feb 8, 2007 8:24 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

> ideological purity of which they were once so proud
Being so doesn't really help, you might have noticed that was yet another lesson.

Besides that, ideology that theoretically concurs with what it strives to practically kill is flawed somewhere... (guess it's rather to be understood by those who either live[d] here, or studied the history quite well -- which might be useful for americans since their country is moving the same ol' road)

> It's never too late to "get straight".
Well if you don't know or remember, america ignored European copyrights for something like 70 years or two centuries, don't recall exactly this early in the morning. And it didn't quite get it straight anytime, especially now.

So it depends on what is to be considered "straight", and if asked recursively, this question leads to what our previous regime fought insanely...

PS: disclaimer: I use Linux exclusively since 1998, am involved in free consulting fulltime and taught it at lic145.kiev.ua around 2001 (planning on take two -- some children have thanked already...)

"straight"?

Posted Feb 8, 2007 22:20 UTC (Thu) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]

Well if you don't know or remember, america ignored European copyrights for something like 70 years or two centuries

And actually, the movie industry moved to California in the early 1900s because they wanted to avoid paying for Edison's patents...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States

Russian Schools to Switch to Linux After Microsoft Piracy Case (MosNews)

Posted Feb 7, 2007 23:58 UTC (Wed) by theraphim (subscriber, #25955) [Link]

Let me briefly explain what is actually happened here.

Preamble.
As you may heard, there is a strong movement to join Russia into the WTO. During this campaign the infamous 4-letter (RIAA, MPAA) and 3-letter (BSA) entities created much hype about IP rights and so on.
That said, to not upset our heads of state, office of public prosecutor at the last year started pseudorandomly checking various organisations - commercial or not - on this subject. They are looking for the pirated software, especially, Microsoft one (because it is the most widespread AND because they don't know anything else ever exist).
After they find something, they need to estimate the "damages" caused by unlicensed usage. If the total sum is over 50000 roubles, then we have criminal liability here (otherwise it's only civil liability).
So, let's proceed to our particular case.

Ponosov's case.
The case consists of 660 pages, most of them are useless paperwork. Only 60 pages are significant, but all that pages are literally crap.
Expert examination, in which we don't know the expert name. We only know that he is "Microsoft Certified".
First question to the expert is ridiculous: "Is this software pirated?" With no doubt expert answer is "Yes". and the second question is to estimate the "damages". What expert did:
a) take the higher microsoft price
b) look at file timestamps (of windows and office exes/dlls) and determine USD/RUR exchange rate at that time
c) count software multiple times (for example, once for the MS Office, and also for the Outlook)
d) summarize and multiply
It is obvious that by using this "method" of calculation we'll get huge "damage" and we'll definitely have criminal case. Also, 1st question is outside the competence of the technical expert. Court decides, based on evidece collected by prosecutors.
Going further. As any sane person will notice - license purity is determined not by examining file placement on local disk, but by checking the documents - proof of purchases etc. These 12 computers were shipped to the schol with windows preinstalled, and the headmaster has nothing to do with them because all related paperwork stays in the department of the education (who actually manages ALL money spending in all schools in their district). But, prosecutors never did anything in that department. They spent much time in that school, interrogated many witnesses, but never actually did any _investigation_.

Zooming out.
From January to November of 2006 there was 6960 criminal cases of this type. Rumors are that courts are strongly biased to resolving them as guilty. Given that most of them are trumped-up in such manner as this particular case, and counting my own experience when this method (to send the authorities) are used to extort bribes or eliminate the competitors, we don't have really friendly environment here :) However, what is good in this particular case - that we do have press coverage, and, given that prosecutors are acting very dumb and will stick to their line, they made a lot of work to explain how dangerous Microsoft software is.
It's Linux advocates' job - to catch the moment and step in with the safe solution.

The above is only brief overview and conclusion, but if anyone interested in specifics - I will try to answer any questions.