
The Eric Lundgren Story: When Free Isn’t Free - szczys
https://hackaday.com/2018/05/14/the-eric-lundgren-story-when-free-isnt-free/
======
tzs
Microsoft's blog post on this includes links to the government's evidence [1].

This include emails from Lundgren that sure make this look like a pretty
straightforward case of making and importing counterfeit goods intended to
make the buyers think they are getting the real thing, and doing this for
profit.

There's also discussion of ways to ship to try to avoid Customs, and when a
shipment does get delayed by Customs Lundgren gives his partner specific lies
to tell the Customs agents if questioned.

[1] [https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/04/27/the-
fac...](https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/04/27/the-facts-about-
a-recent-counterfeiting-case-brought-by-the-u-s-government/)

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at-fates-hands
This is probably where he went too far:

 _Given these basic facts, Eric had the idea to take the freely available
restore disc ISOs and have them professionally pressed to CDs. While he was at
it he figured he might as well make them look like the real thing, and
provided the Chinese company he was working with images of what the legitimate
restore discs should look like. Right down to the company logos and copyright
notices._

This sounds a lot like copyright infringement. I know some intellectual
property attorneys and if you asked them about this before you did it, they'd
probably cringe and tell you to avoid doing something that _appears_ you're
using Microsoft's logos to make money.

~~~
hinkley
Trademark infringement.

If his discs are fine there’s no problem from the customers standpoint. If the
manufacturer is accidentally injecting a Trojan onto the discs they press, now
MS has a PR problem caused by someone who is using their trademarks without
permission.

I’m no fan of MS legal practices but he really fucked up and you _have to_
defend your trademarks or you can lose them.

~~~
tialaramex
Microsoft didn't initiate any of this. US Customs officials went "That's
weird, why are boxes of Microsoft/ Dell restore CDs coming from China to this
random outfit?" and the answer of course was "You have just detected a
counterfeiting operation, try to figure out who the principles are and
imprison them so they can't do it again".

Microsoft's first involvement was after Lundgren was arrested (maybe even
after he was charged?) when the US government wanted to know what these things
would be worth if they were real (Lundgren's lawyers told a court it should
ask what fake ones are worth, which is zero of course, but that's not what the
law says, nor does it make any sense) and to what extent they'd fool
purchasers.

It suits Lundgren to portray this as "Computer recycler jailed by Microsoft"
rather than "Counterfeiter caught" and in the tech press it appears he has
been at least partly successful. I presume it's hoped that this will influence
the actual jail time.

You don't actually have to defend trademarks. Corporations would _like_ you to
help their Sales and Marketing divisions by treating their mark as special,
and they will sometimes try to harass people into doing things the law doesn't
require (US tech companies spent a few years trying to get UK magazines to
write ® after the names of their products, the Editors of those magazines
declined because there's no basis in law for such nonsense). Abandonment
consists of not _using_ a mark, not of declining to chase each and every
unauthorised use. For example if Apple decided today to stop selling the
"iPod" and not use the mark in any other way (e.g. "iPhone with iPod features"
or "Download iPod for your macOS today" or whatever) a court might eventually
conclude that this mark was abandoned, and in say, 2060 if I sell the "iPod"
bright orange sphere that plays Whale sounds, an Apple lawsuit insisting they
still own the name "iPod" might fail due to abandonment. But if they don't sue
a guy with a Geocities home page called "Gary's iPod" for eight years it
does't magically mean now iPod isn't trademarked and anyone can use it.

~~~
hinkley
Yeah, I think you're right in this case, and a lot of us are assuming the
details look like some other cases where the details were very different.

But it does feel a bit like crocodile tears. Why did Customs seize the goods?
Because they've been trained by industry (regulatory capture)? Or because it
was the right thing to do? I think I'm on the fence still.

But to reiterate, making a disc look exactly like the official one was a big
mistake on his part. He should not have done that. I'd like to think that
being more transparent would have kept him out of trouble.

------
detaro
previous discussions of the same case, I don't see anything new here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16956198](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16956198)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16946478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16946478)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16940722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16940722)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16921634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16921634)

------
analognoise
This guy copied restore disks with Microsoft and Dell logos, in bulk, that
were seized by customs (thats why they weren't sold).

I mean what did he think would happen?

~~~
RIMR
That's really the kicker here. He was trying as hard as possible to make these
look official.

Had he just kept a folder of ISOs on his computer at work, and burned images
on-demand for customers, and just wrote the OS version on the disk, he
probably wouldn't have had a problem.

Instead, he had a foreign company burn the discs en-masse on consumer-grade
CDs, and slapped trademarks on the packaging that he didn't have the rights
to.

I think there's room for nuance in this case, and that the penalties are
outrageous, but this guy isn't innocent. He was planning on turning a profit
by selling another company's IP, and using their trademarks on the packaging.

~~~
tialaramex
Not only would he not have "had a problem" if he'd proceeded as you describe
he also wouldn't have had a lucrative counterfeiting business, which was in
fact the point.

I've seen this same thing done for cases where I was closer to the facts. The
government's lawyers don't care about your sob story. So when you assert in
court

"I needed to feed sixteen orphans so the Magnifiton bowl was exactly what I
needed. I know now that it wasn't right to take it, but I felt at the time it
was the only way."

... they don't bother telling the court there weren't actually any orphans and
the bowl isn't really suitable for serving food. The charge was burglary -
breaking into the museum and stealing this valuable bowl, which they've
already proved you did, why should they care about your ludicrous sob story?

But out of court your lawyers can portray this case as an outrage - you were
only trying to help starving orphans, how heartless is this government for
punishing you in this way?

When Lundgren is confronted about the evidence that he's simply a
counterfeiter we're once again on familiar turf. He's been framed, the emails
are fake, everything is being distorted to make him look like the bad guy when
he's actually innocent. Blah blah blah.

------
emilfihlman
The issue is not that he might have broken the law.

It's the absurd and totally disproportionate punishment he's getting.

------
_bxg1
This whole case is just so upsetting. At least now people know not to do what
he did.

