[ubuntu-uk] [Fwd: Re: [OT] - MS XP Pro OEM CD - How?]

[Chris Oattes]

Sean Miller said the following on 17/02/08 10:02:
> On 2/16/08, Eddie Armstrong <eddie_armstrong at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> Well what started out as a simple request has turned into a lot of
>> unpleasantness:
>> I don't know how to make it any more obvious I was seeking a *legal*
>> solution and hoped somebody here might have one. I've all ready agreed
>> that what you say may be correct in essence not necessarily the detail
>> but I really can't be bothered arguing it any more.
> 
> 
> 
> I really don't think Micro$oft is going to go to all the effort of suing
> somebody for re-installing an OEM machine using somebody else's CD (be that
> their physical CD or a burned image of it), I really don't... it would be
> incredibly pedantic to classify such a thing a piracy as the software is
> protected by licence keys and is useless without them... I would call
> copying the CD a "technical infringement of the licence terms", no more than
> that.  Piracy would have to involve also sharing the key or distributing a
> hacked copy that doesn't require a key, something that has not happened here
> at all... whether a copy has been burned from one's own CD  (legal, I
> believe, for backup purposes) or from somebody else's what is arrived at in
> the end is the same... an installation of Windows XP using a valid OEM
> licence on the machine for which that licence was supplied...
> 
> Sean
> 
> 

I don't think the issue is that you will get fined loads of money for 
copying a Windows CD. The point is that it is, at best, against the 
terms of the license, and at worse could be considered piracy. Therefore 
the act of making a copy of the CD for someone else is "wrong" whichever 
way you look at it, and is not something that should be promoted on this 
list.

Chris Oattes.