Bill Gates says software piracy has worked for Microsoft

Every now and then one of these stories pops up. Yep, Microsoft used piracy to their advantage to try and get their products embedded in the Chinese user community, but they are still committed to fighting piracy. Many people have thought Linux would destroy Microsoft’s attempts to expand in China but clealry not (check this out seven years ago in Salon).

Leader of online piracy group is jailed

A US court has jailed the British leader of an online piracy group, DrinkOrDie, which specialised in software cracks. Founded in 1993 the group ran until 2001 when raids in six countries broke up the group. As the BBC article points out the case was one of the first to involve extradition for IP crime.

Microsoft piracy helped Romania

You gotta love this story about how the President of Romania tells Bill Gates that pirated Microsoft software helped kickstart Romania’s IT industry. Microsoft knows that some piracy early on is good to create product lock in, but how to stop it once that is achieved?