Gorbachev asks Gates for 'mercy'

Wow, they send people to Siberia for software piracy?

It used to be sweet little grandmothers or a bubble boy who gets nabbed selling crack, stealing software, music, photos, movies. Now its Russian schoolteachers. If you're a musician, photographer, videographer, and you've had your products hijacked and redistributed, believe me, Siberia is the Garden of Eden compared to what most digital freeloaders really deserve.

Ed I couldn't agree more!

However, in the case of a monopoly that severely overcharges for its products the case becomes a bit clouded as to just who is cheating whom. A parallel in some ways are the music companies crying that piracy is stealing the work of their artists, and while this is certainly true, it also happens that no one ever took as much advantage of the artists as they did.

Intellectual piracy is theft, plain and simple, and deserves to be punished. So do monopolies.

Greg

If you don't want people to copy your stuff don't distribute it; you want the recognition, the fame and the money. Pollute my personal air space with your radio waves and photons, don't expect me not to capture a few and hold onto them. I am not a pirateer so I am not writing to defend the actions of those who pirate. But to speak out against the likes of Gates and Sony CEO's complaining about piracy increasing cost is just part of a never ending cycle of no one wanting to back down or lose face. Its about time governments supported the access to software by no profit organisations such as schools.

A good incentive I have seen is the Brazilian governments HIV treatment program, this has also available in Hati and many other developing countries are adopting the policy, where they have are not going to be bullied buy foreign corporations. I am not a socialist either, but I do believe capitalism needs to be controlled for the benefit of man kind and not a CEO's bank balance. There are other places in this world that are trying to sever their forced dependence on these bullies.

This is politics. Its not SUPPOSED to make sense.

It shouldn't even make the news.

Let's put this in perspective. Russia was a communist country until a little over 20 years ago, when state control was given over to "free enterprise". Can you imagine that any of the resources fell into the hands of hard-working honest people? I can't. Surely all the current oligarchs were nephews or patrons of well-placed communist party members. What does this have to do with the teacher in the Urals? The communist culture every one owns everything, but you can't get access to it unless you are connected. Capitalistic societies have a term for this. It is called "sucking up". In this environment, everyone gleans from everything floating by. This is still true right up to the top (Alexander Putin). I would expect it will be at least 100 years before intellectual property rights can have any meaning in the former Soviet Union. Businesses that go there must understand that. Making alliances or bribes that turn local prosecutors into your private enforcers doesn't actually change the culture. Moscow ain't Kansas, Toto!

Piracy is wrong, but if software companies wanted to they could encyrypt the software to prevent it. They don't because that is one of the ways they grow their user base. People take software home from work and put it on their home machines and learn how to really use the software along with the rest of their family. They move from job to job and usually they will advocate for the tools they are already comfortable using to do their jobs on their workstations. Software companies know this. In the end it helps them sell more software not less. In the past there was significant piracy going on it the former Soviet Union, there still is in most of the far east region. Microsoft is pretty much a monopoly right now, and they are just as guilty when they force users to spend money to replace all the operating systems in every pc in an organization because they arbitrarily decide not to support it any more. Extortion is just as bad as piracy. When some update downloads and screws up your windows installation and corrupts your user profiles you had better know somebody with the software it takes to backdoor your system or its time to reformat. Microsoft is no angel either.

the real criminal here is the IMBECILE and those who supervise him/her that decided to make a case /make an example of someone who is unable to defend themselves .... the guy is a russian teacher and i would be willing to bet NOT even remotely wealthy or prestigious individual, so much like the recording industry when they decided to go after kids for "file sharing" the bullies with money and power decide to go after the skinny kid w/ glasses cuz he is easy to beat up. The only saving grace for this guy is knowing that ,yes dorothy karma does even things out eventually cuz what goes around comes around... like what a shame it would be for those accusing to have an "accident" on the way to take this guy to siberia and be stuck there themselves for the rest of their lives...

I love the equation: the record company shafted musician A therefore all the world is entitled to "share" musician A-Z's music: that'll show those greedy record companies! Agree with respondents on the big player scenarios: Remember when Steve Jobs was going to rescue the record companies from Napster? Steve Jobs is becoming the record company, the movie company. Whatever can be put into iPod will channel through Jobs. The record companies are now the middle player, the artists the content providers. The iPod manufacturing sector is the new monopoly. The exit strategy is that iPod is the black hole into which all creative content will reside. Jobs is attacking music copyrights as I write this. Imagine filming a movie and the next day its all over the world from one pirated master copy. You don't even have to imagine, that was yesteray. Sharing is just another word for give it up sucka I can get it from a friend anyway for free. Ed

Seems to me that Former Soviet President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev might have some clout in getting clemency for a teacher in Russia. Why doesn't he take care of it himself?

Old and in the way. Putin is now the guy to schmooze.

Putin is one tough little guy. Wasn't he getting ready to step down?

I seem to recall Putin making noises intimating that he doesn't expect to hold power forever, but I suspect he will ultimately conclude that his country needs his leadership ever so badly. A recent nuclear industry newsletter contained a report that Russia is implementing restrictions on foreign ownership of Russian capital assets and/or corporations. Purchases of capital assets in 39 spheres will be subject to approval. These include arms, military hardware, nuclear materials, and nuclear facility construction. Restrictions will also apply to any sector that is 2 to 3% of the Russian GDP. Approval will be required at 4 levels, culminating with approval by the President himself.

Of course any society that sells its capital assets to finance current consumption is clearly eating the seed corn and is headed for trouble. Some of this Russian policy announcement only makes good sense. No society, communist or capitalist, can depend strictly on the business community to watch after the public interest. Time will tell how this new power is used.

I think that the teacher is guilty, if microsoft helps him will be like a message to the pirates saying "theres gonna be mercy for all" piracy is a crime, and a pirate is anyone who make, distribute or use piracy. In other way lets analize why the pirated software is so popular?, the markets have standards, quality and price standards, if you have a good quality you can sell it to a good price, because your product is so good that can return benefits to his consumers (saving time, money etc.) so the consumer think that it worth the dollars that they spend, in that case the product is an investment not a spend, but if your product is too expensive in comparative to his quality, the consummers will look for more cheap ways to get it (piracy for example) i know that piracy is wrong but we have to open our minds and think: why is so popular? maybe is the time for the software industry and the monopolys (like microsoft) to look at his products and see if the prices are right....

Shame on the prosecuters of this teacher... As large a company Microsoft is and the extent of their profits they have groups of people trying to find good charities to give money away. Microsoft products are the best in the world and the future will tell how big an impact they have made on the world.

I can't tell people how to spend their energies but I can offer my opinion- prevent this unfortunate incident from happening now and forever more by giving these needed tools to any educator that applies for it. If it is a pirated copy, allow them to have a licensed copy free in return for immediate destruction of the bootleg copy and any information leading to the source of the pirated copy.

There can be no more humanitarian gesture than to be apart of tomorrows leaders and the ability to bring awareness to a corner of the world otherwise un-noticed. Democracy, literacy, and freedom are made through communication and microsoft products provide extrodinary tools to that end.

Free the teacher...

"Microsoft products are the best in the world ...."

Surely you jest. How can you tell when Windows is a monopoly, and they both pressured and provided incentives to bundle their applications with it on new PCs?

Please point out the products they make that are the best in the world, besides the monopoly OS.

"Democracy, literacy, and freedom are made through communication and microsoft products provide extrodinary tools to that end."

Bill Gates buying up the digital rights to as much art and literature as he possibly can doesn't count I guess.

You obviously haven't been heavily involved in computers and software for very long.

BTW: I don't think Microsoft is in any way involved in going after this teacher. I think it is solely the work of the Russian government to make a high profile example of him to pretend they are respecting intellectual property.

Greg

¡¡¡¡To threat a teacher with Siberia's GULAG ruins!!!!

This is a good opportunity to revisit Soviet GULAG camps. There are a lot of adventure tours to visit GULAG ruins in Russia, departing from transiberian towns, for example from Vladivostok. They use motorcycles, including Halley Davisons, and the guides are the grand sons of both inmates and guards.

This is ironic, the Kolyma River Gold GULAG where 4 million forced workers died in the 30's is a network of camps covering a surface even larger than France. Millions of Stalin's slaves died in the GULAG network. The time has come to uncover this horror to the world.

If you want to know a little more about the GULAG slavery network, jut try some of these simple words in your navigator:

Stalin – GULAG – images – maps – routes – tours – adventure - Kolyma River – Vorkuta

And tell the boys at Google Earth to search for the GULAG ruins to make a complete image database where to find them. This database would be a definitive obstacle for those who would like to destroy the ruins.

Jaime Soto Figueroa

Santiago, Chile