Microsoft condemns use of anti-piracy laws to stifle dissent

[denem]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — US software giant Microsoft expressed concern on Monday over a report that anti-software piracy laws were being used to stifle dissent in Russia and announced steps to try to halt the practice.

The Microsoft statement followed a report in The New York Times that the Russian authorities had used piracy charges concerning Microsoft software to confiscate computers and harass non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

"As general counsel for Microsoft, it was not the type of story that felt good to read," Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel Brad Smith said in a blog post.

"Whatever the circumstances of the particular cases the New York Times described, we want to be clear that we unequivocally abhor any attempt to leverage intellectual property rights to stifle political advocacy or pursue improper personal gain," Smith said.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gdTay2EPzYDii4D7QzThH6Cqnpog

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More to the point, they are doing something about it.

Excerpts from statement from Brad Smith, Microsoft Senior Vice President and General Counsel:

To prevent non-government organizations from falling victim to nefarious actions taken in the guise of anti-piracy enforcement, Microsoft will create a new unilateral software license for NGOs that will ensure they have free, legal copies of our products ...

We’ll solve this problem by providing a unilateral NGO Software License that runs automatically from Microsoft to NGOs and covers the software ALREADY installed on their PCs. We’ll make this new, non-transferable license applicable to NGOs in a number of countries, including in Russia. We will also make it available to appropriate journalists’ organizations in order to include small newspapers and independent media. Because it’s automatic, they won’t need to take any steps to benefit from its terms.

..we’re creating in Russia a new NGO Legal Assistance Program focused specifically on helping NGOs document to the authorities that this new software license proves that they have legal software....

Finally, we will undertake new steps to protect against third parties pretending to represent Microsoft in order to extort money for illegal software use.

We know for a fact that the reduction of software piracy has breathed new life into Russia’s own software industry and has created new jobs in our industry, both at Russian software companies and for U.S. software exporters. But none of this should create a pretext for the inappropriate pursuit of NGOs, newspapers, or other participants in civil society. And we certainly don’t want to contribute to any such effort, even inadvertently.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2010/09/13/anti-piracy-enforcement-and-ngos.aspx

[JDPriestly]

1. This is a good step. Thanks to Microsoft.

Of course, can't NGOs use open source software without any problems having to do with piracy?