
‘E-waste’ activist gets 15 months in prison for selling Windows restore disks - ilamont
https://www.polygon.com/windows/2018/4/25/17280178/eric-lundgren-windows-restore-disks-microsoft-prison
======
mwnivek
Earlier discussion:

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

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jph
If you have contacts at Microsoft, please share this with them and ask them to
overturn this terrible ruling.

Quote: Microsoft’s lawyer argued to the court that the sales of the disks
“displaced Microsoft’s potential sales of genuine operating systems,” while
ignoring the fact these disks were inoperable without an existing license paid
for or granted by the company. An expert witness testified there was “zero or
near zero” monetary value in any of the disks; they were useful mainly as a
convenience to users or maintenance technicians.

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deckar01
The reason customs got involved is that he violated Microsoft and Dell
trademarks by printing their logos on the disks. The reason he got jail time
is that despite the disks getting seized by customs, they setup a sting to
convinced him to sell the disks behind custom's back and he fell for it.

I appreciate his cause, but I think there is a much simpler solution: Have
computer repair shops offer a DVD burning service. There is legal precedence
for 3rd party services being able to legally make physical copies of digit
files for consumers and charge for the service/materials.

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jMyles
15 months in prison, a $50k fine, and then 3 years of subsequent "supervised
release" where this guy isn't allowed to be self-employed, smoke cannabis, and
must submit to a search of his person on demand.

This is absolutely fucking crazy.

But seriously HN: what are we going to do about it? If this were you going
down like this, what might you ask us to do?

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rightos
What the hell is going on here? Doesn't Microsoft offer similar for free
download from their own website? I seem to remember their media creation tool
not prompting for a key until install time. Why on earth would they fight
this?

~~~
gh02t
There's another article on HN right now about it, one of the comments provides
some insight:

    
    
      He was not providing people with restore media they could use to 
      fix their own machines. He was taking the restore media, burning 
      it onto discs _with official Microsoft and Dell logos on them 
      and then selling them to computer refurbishers who would then include them with PCs 
      they were selling.
    

If that's true then I think it provides some justification. It's at least
infringing on trademarks.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16923178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16923178)

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krob
This is Microsoft telling the public better not get clever with us or we'll
get clever with throwing your aas in jail just to set an example for the next
clever person. He was clever and got smashed like a bug by them.

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microcolonel
Is the idea that Microsoft has a legal right to make it inconvenient or
obscure enough to fix an existing licensed Windows installation, that people
just don't bother and buy a new license?

~~~
sevensor
So it would seem. From my experience with laptop "recovery" partitions,
actually reinstalling windows on old hardware is a pretty iffy business,
requiring a good deal of expertise. Easier to install Linux at that point.

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cbanek
I was just at Fry's electronics and right under the official Windows 10 copies
(USB stick + license key, $105) were DVDs that said they were "Restore only"
disks for Windows 10. It said plainly on the box that it didn't have a license
key and you would need one. They were $12. They weren't made by Microsoft
though (no genuine sticker, different packaging).

Seems like the same thing? I thought it seemed convenient for those who lost
their media.

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mexicanandre
What a real shame. The punishment does not at all fit the crime.

