Re: Valid Product Keys for Windows XP SP2 Professional Volume License Edition

I see that everyone else has given up on you, but I'll give it one last
shot, then you can reply all you want and it will be ignored. No, in your
silly reasoning, this is not conceding defeat of my ideas, it is merely
recognizing that there is probably nothing in the world that I can say that
will get you to under the concept of theft.

Answers in line, as usual.


"Alias" <aka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%238PSrmLBHHA.3620@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gregg Hill wrote:
Scroll down.


"Alias" <aka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Oa2BaIGBHHA.1224@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gregg Hill wrote:
"Alias" <aka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eT2IUsCBHHA.3560@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gregg Hill wrote:
Copyright violation in the US is a federal offense
I don't live in the US.

I know you don't, but you said it is only a civil offense in the US. I
pointed out that it is a federal offense. I don't speak lawyerese. To
me, theft is still theft, whether punishable under civil or criminal
law, or no law at all.
What you call theft others call fair use. It's a subjective thing and
may have something to do with your upbringing. I am against theft and
all my software licenses are paid for but the prospect of buying one
license and being able to install it on the three computers I own is
appealing.



Using the software for which you have not paid is copyright violation
.
A civil offense.

Whether a civil offense or criminal offense, theft is theft. It is not
only an issue of law, it is an issue of morals. Taking something that
does not belong to you is immoral.
But MS defines if you're taking something or not, not you or any higher
moral authority.


And if I walked into your house and took your TV, then YOU would be
defining if it is stolen, which puts you in the exact same boat as
Microsoft. Microsoft paid people to develop the software, then they wrote
a license agreement, then they sold the license to use the product. They
made it, they have the right to determine the licensing of it. They have
the right to determine its legal use. It is beyond me how you can
rationalize using it without buying it, according to the rules set forth
by whomever developed the product.

If I buy it, I think I should be able to install it on as many computers
as the I like.


Let's look at your statement, "If I buy it, I think I should be able to
install it...." You do not seem to understand that what **you think** is not
the issue here. The issue is that the manufacturer has a license to which
you must agree if you are going to use the product. The manufacturer has the
right to set the conditions of that licesne, since they created the product.
If you do not agree with those conditions, do not use the product. Perhaps
the store from which you bought it will hassle you, but the manufacturer
will accept return of your product in most cases if you explain that you
read the EULA and disagree with it. In your case, you seem to understand the
EULA already, so your argument is moot anyway. You know what the EULA says;
you just disagree with it, but want to use the software YOUR way, because
YOU think you are justified.




Millions, if not billions, of people agree with me.


Terrorists blew up a train in Spain. Millions of people agreed with that
action and thought it was justified. Obviously, it was not. I use extreme
examples because you are incapable of comprehending the simpler ones
presented earlier.








If you could legally install XP or Vista on all your home computers and
only have to buy one license, you would do it and not consider it theft.


You are correct. However, no matter in what country I reside, if I did
NOT pay for the product, which users of the leaked keys have failed to
do, then it would still be theft, whether or not the law calls it as
such. Again, you have no right to use something for which no one has
paid, unless the manufacturer has given you a free copy. If the EULA says
I can install it on ONE computer, and my country's law says otherwise, I
consider it theft to install on more than one computer, because the
manufacturer of the software wrote the license terms, not your country of
residence.

One cannot get one's money back after opening the package. One cannot read
the EULA until after one opens the package and starts the installation.
Ergo, such a scammy EULA is null and void. All stores say you are buying
software and NONE tell you you are buying a license. Who's the thief in
this picture?


You can open the box, read the EULA, then not agree to it, and return the
product. Perhaps the store from which you bought it will hassle you, but the
manufacturer will accept return of your product in most cases if you explain
that you read the EULA and disagree with it.















If you did not pay for it, and you are using a copy of someone else's
software, whether illegal civilly or criminally, it is still illegal,
and it is still theft.
No, it's a civil offense. Interesting how MS' EULA gives them the
right to change the rules at any time but if you go back on your
agreement, you think they should be locked up and have their lives
ruined.

If there is no profit motive, where I live, it is not a crime or a
civil offense.

But there IS a profit motive. By not paying for it, you haved
PROFITED!!! directly by saving the amount of money you SHOULD have paid
for that product, according to the EULA to which you technically agreed
by your use of the software.
No, that's MS' profit motive, not allowing someone to install something
they bought on as many computers they want to in the privacy of their
home.


It is YOUR profit motive as well. Of course it is Microsoft's profit
motive, and the motive of every person on this planet who works for a
living. You put in your hours at work, and gee whiz, you expect to get
PAID. What a concept. You seem to think it is unfair that Micorosft also
gets paid for their work. The amount of money they get is irrelevant.

For all MS knows, I could be putting Linux on my other computers. Saying
that I would pay if forced to is speculation.


And that comment was completely irrelevant to your argument. If you put
Linux on your other computers, who cares? We are not discussing Linux, nor
are we discussing whether or not Microsoft is **aware** of every single
illegal or license-violating installation of their product. Whether or no
they know about your improper use of the license does not have a bearing on
whether or not the use is wrong, whether morally or legally.

I made no mention of forcing anyone to pay. You claim that Spain calls it
casual copying if there is no financial gain. I have already proven that
every time you install it without a purchased license for each installation,
you have gained financially, regardless of whether or not there is a law
regulating it.

Let's do the math again, first assuming an honest person of integrity is
using the software in accordance with the license. He has four computers. XP
costs $200 for each copy. He buys four copies for a total expenditure of
$800. Now for the unscrupulous person. You have four computers. You buy one
copy, then install it four times. Total cost of $200. Now $800 - $200 =
$600, which is YOUR FINANCIAL GAIN from not using the license properly.






If it had nothing to do with the software pirate's own profit, then there
is NO reason for anyone, regardless of country of residence, NOT to pay
for it. The ONLY reason that people do not pay for it is so that they can
PROFIT by not spending the money. Read the EULA; you did not buy the
product, you bought the right to use it, per the terms of the license
agreement. If you do not agree with those terms, then simply DO NOT use
the product. There is no moral justification for your viewpoint. If you
cannot meet the manufacturer's requirements to pay for each license, then
don't use it.

Spain distinguishes between casual copying and copying to resell the
copies. You apparently think they're the same thing.


No, I never said they were the same thing. What I have been trying to pound
into your thick head is that you are indeed achieving a financial gain by
using the single license on multiple systems. You claim that Spain calls it
casual copying if there is no financial gain. I have already proven that
every time you install it without a purchased license for each installation,
you have gained financially, regardless of whether or not there is a law
regulating it.

Let's do the math AGAIN, first assuming an honest person of integrity is
using the software in accordance with the license. He has four computers. XP
costs $200 for each copy. He buys four copies for a total expenditure of
$800. Now for the unscrupulous person. You have four computers. You buy one
copy, then install it four times. Total cost of $200. Now $800 - $200 =
$600, which is YOUR FINANCIAL GAIN from not using the license properly. What
part of your not having spent the extra &600 do you fail to see as financial
gain. In this scenario, YOU are $600 ahead of the honest person, and that my
boy, IS FINANCIAL GAIN. Period.





Why limit your view to the privacy of your own home? Why not buy one
package and install it on all 10,000 computers in your business? Whether
you steal one apple or the whole damn orchard, you are still stealing.
Theft is theft, regardless of the amount which was taken or the purpose
for which it was taken.

Businesses don't enjoy the same fair use provisions that private parties
do because, unlike private parties, they can write off the expense.







I define "theft" as taking something that does not belong to you and
which you have no right to use.
Who decides what belongs to whom and who has the right to use it, you?


No, not me. In this case, Microsoft's EULA, which you technically agree
to by your use of the software, defines who has the right to use it.
Thanks for confirming my point. MS is the law, eh? Interesting concept.


I did not confirm your point. MS is not the law. MS is the manufacturer
of the product that **you agreed to use** under their license conditions.
MS absolutely has the right to determine who gets to use the
product...those who pay for it. **How** you use it is up to you. The fact
that you **do** use it requires license compliance.

Um, the EULA is not available to agree to until it's too late to get your
money back. Ye Olde Bait and Switch thievery.



Contact the manufacturer directly to get your money back. I have done it
several times. Also, since you and the rest of the pirates are well aware of
the license restrictions anyway, your point is moot.





On a broader scale, if I walked into your house and took your TV, would
that be theft?
If you want to copy my TV and leave me the original, be my guest.

According to your standards, it seems it would only be theft if you
could prove that you owned it. What if you could not find your receipt?
I guess you would be OK with me taking it. Cool! What's your address?
Keep trying, maybe you'll come up with a comparable analogy.

OK, if you provide a service that costs you money, say you are a plumber
or a programmer, do you do 50% of your work for free? Why not? You are
asking Microsoft to do so. Turn your little table around and put yourself
in the place of the person not receiving compensation for each piece of
his work.

Um, a service cannot be copied and resold on the Internet. Do you even
wonder why it's so hard to think of an appropriate analogy?


And why does something have to copied and sold on the Internet to be able to
be stolen? The analogy of the programmer noted above is perfect, because
that is what is happening with Microsoft. OK, let's use your little mental
restriction, since you seem incapapble of realizing that things can be
stolen not just via electronic distribution.

Here we go. You are a programmer. You write a program that took you
thousands of hours to develop. Lots of people want to use your program. You
sell someone a license to use it on one computer, because you need to make
money back to compensate you for those thousands of hours of work. He is a
person just like you who thinks you have no right to collect funds for each
license sold. He reasons, "I bought the software, I can do whatever I want
with it. If I buy the license, it belongs to me. No theft." He then takes
the license key and posts it on the Internet, hands it to the guy next door,
and mails it to a friend in China, covering three means of distribution
(electronic, physical, and mail). Soon, millions of people just like you are
using YOUR program on their systems, yet you have only been paid for one
copy. Do you honestly think you would have no problem with that scenario?

An analogy does not have to be an exact match to a situation in order to be
applicable. The point of the analogy is that the provider of a service, the
writer of a program, the painter of an art work, the manufacturer of a
product, all have the right to be compensated for each use of their service,
each installation of their program, each painting sold, or each product
used.

Again, turn your little table around and put yourself in the place of the
person not receiving compensation for each piece of his work. YOU want ot be
compensated fo rall of your work, no matter what form it takes, so why do
you still feel Microsoft has no right to be compensated?





More below.





That transcends your requirement for it to be a criminal act.
No, that is your vague opinion of what theft is.

My opinion was not vague. If it does not belong to you, or you have no
right to use it, and you take it, it is theft. If I lived in a country
that had no laws of any kind, but I took another man's car that he had
purchased, it would still be theft. It is a moral issue as well as an
issue of law. Apparently, you lack the moral fortitude to understand
that concept. Not much I can do about that.

If I buy the license, it belongs to me. No theft. The disagreement you and
I have is how I can use the license that I can only agree to after it's
too late to get my money back.

I buy XP. It belongs to me. The country I live in says I can do what I
want to with it in the privacy of my home and you call it theft.



First of all, this thread is discussing illegally leaked volume license
keys, but the principal applies to you as well. Unless your XP EULA is
written differently than the one in the US, you buy a **license to use**
the XP code, **subject to the conditions of the license.** You did
**not** buy the product code itself.

And I can't get my money back if I install the license to the point where
I can read the EULA. Ye Olde Catch 22 thievery.


If the manufacturer requires you to buy a license for each installation
of the XP code, and your country flagrantly says "who gives a crap" about
the manufacturer, you are still stealing. As I mentioned before,
something does not have to be illegal for it to be wrong morally.

No, it is only stealing according to an EULA that I can't disagree to
until it's too late for me to get my money back. Such a scammy EULA is
null and void as far as I am concerned and I feel I have a right to use a
license as I see fit in the privacy of my home under the fair use
provisions.









In your country, is the Microsoft EULA written to allow use of
someone else's Volume License Key to run the Microsoft software? If
not, then it is still theft.
Not if there's no profit motive. If you copy XP and sell the copy,
you're in trouble. If you copy it and put it on another computer or
give it to a friend, you aren't. It will be really interesting to read
the new EULA now that this is law here. I'll be sure and post it ;-)

Again, there IS a profit motive. Each person who does not pay for the
copy he/she uses has PROFITED directly by not having to fork out the
few bucks for the software. That is an economic profit.
The only profit motive you're talking about comes from MS.


Nope, YOUR profit motive is still there. If XP costs $200 for each copy,
and you buy one license which the EULA allows you to use on one computer,
but you install it on four computers, you just PROFITED buy not spending
the additional $600.

See what I said about the EULA above.


#1, you can return the product to Microsoft directly.
#2, you still have the legal right to install it on ONE computer, so you
have no need to return it. The whole point of this discussion is use of one
license on multiple systems, and you already know that is against the EULA.









I would prefer to be on high moral ground than to be an underground
rat that steals from people.

Gregg
There's no reason to refer to me as an "underground rat" or "an
unscrupulous person". Can you please stick to the issues and avoid
personal attacks?

OK, I'll take back the "rat" comment, but I stand by the "unscrupulous
person" tag, for the reasons mentioned above. I pity your neighbors
when they buy something nice and you take it. What? You would never do
that? Sure you would...you say it's OK to do it with software, why not
your neighbor's possessions?

Gregg
Casual copying is not the same as stealing a TV set. I am against
stealing. I just disagree with you regarding casual copying of software
with no profit motive (reselling the software, as whether one would buy
it or not if one had to pay is not established and speculation).

Alias

Nope, YOUR profit motive is still there. Again, if XP costs $200 for each
copy, and you buy one license which the EULA allows you to use on one
computer, but you install it on four computers, you just PROFITED buy not
spending the additional $600. That is YOUR profit motive, not
Microsoft's.

You're assuming their EULA is fair, legal and the best thing since TIVO.
Unfortunately for your argument, one cannot disagree to the EULA until
it's too late to get your money back.


Let's take that TV and make it 100 of them, sitting in your local
electronics store. It is the store's profit motive to sell those TVs at a
higher price than it cost to purchase them so that they can pay their
employees and have some left over for fun or philanthropy. It is
Microsoft's profit motive to sell the license for XP at a price higher
than what it cost to have it developed. That store paid to get those TVs
in stock. Microsoft paid to get the software developed. The store sells
ten TVs. Microsoft sells one license to use the XP code. The store gets
robbed and thieves take the other 90. Microsoft gets robbed when someone
releases a key to load the software. The store makes no further profit,
and they are out the cost of buying those TVs. The store closes, and its
employees now go hungry. Microsoft makes no further profit on all uses of
the software via the illegal key. Sure, MS can absorb it, but some
companies cannot. That is not the point. The point is that the profit
motive of the store was rightfully to make money, but the thieves' profit
motive was not to spend any money, but to still enjoy the benefit of the
product. That is precisely what you and the key leaker/poster are
promoting.

Your example is absurd at best when you consider that Microsoft made
billions with 95/98/Me/Office 97-2000 and W2K, all widely copied for
personal use and pirated.


Again, if you steal one apple or the whole damn orchard, you are still a
thief. Thievery is not dependent upon the amount stolen, not is it dependent
upon the number of times something is stolen, but it is dependent upon
whether or not ANYTHING was taken without permission or compensation, or was
used in violation of the license in this case. How much money Microsoft has
made is not the issue. Proper moral and legal use of the license conditions
IS the issue. You seem to justify taking things from people who have more
money than you do. Guess what? Every thug who mugs someone uses the same
thought process. "You have way more money than I do, therefore I can take
some of yours."

The point is that the profit motive of the store was rightfully to make
money, but the thieves' profit motive was not to spend any money, but to
still enjoy the benefit of the product. Whether that store made $2 on each
TV or $20,000 on each sale, is NOT THE POINT. The point is that EACH
instance of someone getting one of the store's TVs is rightfully due a
compensation.








Yes, that is an extreme example, but it seems you just don't grasp the
concept of theft.

I never said that if one walks into a store and takes something that it
isn't theft.


But apparently a person virtually "walking into" an Internet web site and
doing the exact same thing is not theft in your mind. Ask your self WHY is
there a difference? If I get into a bank's accounting system via the
Internet and transfer $600 to my account, I didn't steal it, right, because
I never actually walked into a bank. Ludicrous! THEFT IS THEFT, no matter
the means used to get the product, service, or whatever, without properly
compensating the creator or provider of the product or service.


You are absolutely beyond hope if you cannot comprehend it now. I am done
with you.

Gregg










Alias


"Alias" <aka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eLN$4RCBHHA.3536@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Gregg Hill wrote:
Software piracy is no different than someone who walks into your
house and steals your computer, TV, jewels, etc. It is THEFT. I'll
bet you would be upset if someone stole YOUR belongings, but you
seem to think it is OK to do just because Bill has more money than
you do.
Um, in the country where I live, sharing software is called "fair
use" and is not illegal at all as long as there is no financial
gain.



There IS financial gain on your part by you not spending the money on
each license.

Financial gain from reselling the license, not fair use.


I have no more time to spend trying to convince unscrupulous people that
taking something that is not rightfully yours is theft. If you don't get
it by now, there is no way any more typing on my part is going to
convince you. I am just thankful that I was raised by honest people 40
years older than I am and who had strong moral values.

Gregg

You obviously was also raised with a Christian silver spoon in your mouth
and have no idea what it's like to be poor. To further ruffle your moral
feathers, in Spain, stealing anything worth less than 400 euros is not
considered a crime. In other words, if you walk into a store here and
steal a 300 euro TV, the worst that can happen to you is a fine and, if
you're poor, you claim insolvency and pay nothing and do no time.

You, I suspect, would like to go back to the times when, in England,
stealing was punishable by hanging and being poor was illegal and, if
caught being poor, was sent to the "poor house" to work for cruel.

To get back to your recently upgraded country, laws that people don't
agree to are traditionally broken in order to change them:

Prohibition

Segregation of blacks

Revolutionary War

Slavery

Marijuana.

Etc.

Using your "high moral" logic, blacks would still be slaves, no one could
drink alcohol, the USA would still be a colony of England and Texas could
still give you life for one joint.

Alias





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