Microsoft files piracy suits against online sellers

Redmond (WA) - Microsoft’s filing of lawsuits in federal district courts against seven of eight suspected counterfeiters who sold unauthorized copies of Windows XP and other software, the company said in a statement yesterday, was made possible through consumer complaints recorded by means of the Windows Genuine Advantage installation procedure.

Commonly known as "product activation," WGA is a principal element of the Windows Installer found in Microsoft software, and that is also leveraged by other brands. The process takes the product key which has historically unlocked the software, plus other information gleaned from the installer’s computer, and sends that to Microsoft via the Internet. The company then compares the information it receives against its corporate database, to see if it already includes an instance of the software unlocked by that key being registered to the user of a very different computer. When the database reports back that the key appears to be used by someone else on a different machine, the activation process fails.

But when it does fail, the consumer is given a channel for grievance, sending a message back to Microsoft. Yesterday’s lawsuits are apparently an indication that the company is following up on those messages, and that consumers’ grievances aren’t being locked away in some other secret database.

The eight defendants named by Microsoft yesterday all allegedly sold one or more (presumably the latter) pirated copies of Microsoft software in auctions held over eBay. Of course, the low, low prices those allegedly counterfeit copies fetched at auction might also have been a clue to the consumer as well.

Although Microsoft states it has asked eBay to shut down auction sales of pirated and counterfeit software, and as many as 50,000 other auction sources to do the same, it isn’t yet clear how auction sites could be enabled to participate in the WGA program. In other words, while consumers can easily complain to Microsoft when they’re suspicious of their software’s origin, it isn’t clear that those same complaints can be, or have been, shared with eBay and others, who could also be taking remedial measures to thwart online commerce in counterfeit software.