Freaky Friday: Abuses in Software Piracy Prosecution

The NYT recently reported that Microsoft has changed their policies to ensure that governments/authorities do not use software piracy as a guise to suppress NGOs and advocacy groups. The story goes: Russian authorities seized computers from opposition and advocacy groups, claiming that these groups had violated intellectual property laws. The NYT reports that these piracy raids were often done to silence oppositional voices while government allies rarely saw this type of treatment.

The change in Microsoft policy is due to  claims that Microsoft’s actions in fact further supported these ridiculous actions by the State. Microsoft’s lawyers called for criminal charges, since they’re hardwired to do as such. However, last week, Microsoft did a switcheroo and formally stated that they will not no longer offer legal support to politically motivated piracy inquiries. In turn, they will provide blanket software licenses to advocacy groups and media outlets. These groups would be automatically covered by these new licenses and would not have to formally apply. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel, made the announcement here.

In find these moves interesting since these licenses represent  a workaround to a State that wishes to minimize dissent. I think it also represents a moment where we see state and corporate interests diverging on the piracy “problem” when to date, there has been an increasing state-corporate convergence on this issue. To date, there has been increasing agreement and cooperation  among these interests in trying to prosecute and stem software piracy. Granted, the case here isn’t really about piracy per se. Piracy is clearly a proxy for State control and political dissent, but now that I think about it, is that really so new?

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