Russia drops piracy case against teacher

Remember that Russian schoolteacher from a few days back, the one charged with piracy, and the one for whom Bill Gates and Microsoft declined to intervene? Well it turns out that Alexander Ponosov didn't need any help from Gates -- or Mikael Gorbachev, for that matter -- as the Perm-based court tasked with trying the case has dismissed all charges and labeled the incident as "trivial." As you probably recall, Ponosov is the teacher / principal of a small, 380-student school in the Urals village of Sepych which purchased 12 computers that Ponosov claimed had already been pre-loaded with pirated copies of Microsoft software. Amusingly, in its public rebuff of Gorbachev's request, Redmond argued that it was "sure that the Russian courts will make a fair decision" because of the "government's position on the importance of protecting intellectual property rights" -- and although most observers would probably agree that this is the fairest outcome, we doubt it's the one that Microsoft had in mind. When informed of the court's decision, Ponosov stated that "of course, it was trivial," and went on to inform the press that "we're off to drink champagne now" -- and with all that money he saved on software, there's definitely gonna be some Cristal in the house tonight.

[ru @ Feb 16th 2007 5:16PM]

Yes, I think it's a good time to say good buy to MS...
http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=ru|en&u=http://knoppix.ru/letter2edu.shtml

[shyamalv @ Feb 15th 2007 8:06PM]

People who steal software suck. You pay for hardware, why not software.

[Prodigy1983 @ Feb 15th 2007 7:13PM]

People who steal software suck. You pay for hardware, why not software?

[Richard @ Feb 15th 2007 7:22PM]

Because software usually seems overpriced. I'll admit to downloading a few programs that were definitely not worth spending hundreds of dollars on.

[Prodigy1983 @ Feb 15th 2007 7:26PM]

That is why they have shareware with free trial periods. Dont like it dont buy it.

I think Ipods are ridiculously over priced. The margin they have on that is crazy. That cannot justify my going to a store and stealing one.

[KainAzeroth @ Feb 15th 2007 7:25PM]

People who blindly accept over priced software suck. And who says they pay for hardware? And this poor guy was just trying to teach some kids stuff about computers you heartless wench. Yo Ho A Pirates Life For Me.

[Michael @ Feb 15th 2007 7:23PM]

BECAUSE IN SOVIET RUSSIA, WINDOWS PIRATES YOU!!!
DO YOU WANT TO BE PIRATED?!?
WE DO NOT!!!

[Michael @ Feb 15th 2007 7:27PM]

^^^
Thats supposed to be from The Bittorrent community, but I accidentally used current user.
Oopsie.

[Prodigy1983 @ Feb 15th 2007 7:29PM]

Such a hypocrite, if windows "pirates you" dont use it.

[mp @ Feb 16th 2007 2:54PM]

Where are you from? My guess would be some place like America or the UK? Have you ever lived in poverty? Not being short of cash one week but having NO money at all in winters where it is minus 20 degrees and you need to pay for oil to heat your home so you don't freeze to death?

I am afraid you are in no position to lecture people about what is wrong or right until you live in such a place.

[kkama67 @ Feb 16th 2007 11:12AM]

I agree that some software is highly over priced. You purchase hardware, therefore companies know you will pay through the nose for software programs. It is like buying a tv without cable. I am on the poor guys side.

[Namarrgon @ Feb 16th 2007 9:37PM]

Riight, because *taking* an iPod off a store shelf is exactly the same as *making* a copy of some software.

The school has no budget. Its choices are: Use free software like Linux, or pirate commercial software like Windows. Either way, MS gets no money - but a new group of young minds will be trained to use Linux, or Windows. Which do you think MS would prefer?

[Prodigy1983 @ Jul 30th 2007 6:39AM]

Yes, how exactly is it different? Just because there is no physical material item being stolen, doesnt mean there is no loss. Ethically they are equally wrong.

You can talk about the financial loss being lesser when you "copy" software, because the stores dont lose anything but otherwise its the same thing.

[fahmi @ Feb 16th 2007 12:28PM]

picture this, US vs Malaysia (south east asia country):

clerk's wage per month:
~USD 700 (US)
~RM 700 (Malaysia)

Milk per bottle:
~ US 1.5 (US)
~ RM 1.75 (Malaysia)

eggs per dozen:
~ US 2.5 (US)
~ RM 1.9 (Malaysia)

OK. now you get the picture the value of wages and daily products are around the same. let's see why malaysians dont buy original software.

Vista: US 300, RM 1200
Office: US 450, RM 1600
AutoCAD: ~ US1500, RM 9000
Games: US 50, RM 270.

if you're clerk, how do you expect to buy ONE game that cost as much as your half month wage? when you can just buy one game for mere USD 1 in malaysia. without piracy, like russian said, poor countries HAVE NO CHANCE whatsoever to compete with big guys in IT.

have a heart. just because these developers can't buy mercedes instead of toyota, that doesn't mean they have it harder than the guy who is struggling to make a living.

[Nathan M @ Feb 15th 2007 9:25PM]

Right, so because they're rich it justifies theft. Uh-huh.

[Prodigy1983 @ Feb 15th 2007 9:54PM]

Exactly, just because you think somebody is rich doesnt mean they dont have a right to it and you can steal it from them.

Its like saying you should give your wealth to the homeless for free, just because you are richer than them. WOuld you do that? So why should the rich not get richer if they deserve it?

Ifa malaysian cant afford the software, he shouldnt buy it.Isnt there the "free" Linsux shit?

[Mirko Fodor @ Mar 6th 2007 7:57AM]

i think OS should be free because its just too expensive for a piece of software in what you run all your other programs for which you have to pay for too
i just hope gates doesn't take over the mobile phone world because you won't be able to escape from critical errors or viruses

[Mirko Fodor @ Feb 15th 2007 9:44PM]

i think os shoud be free, for a good piece of software i will pay, but Windows is just too expensive for what it offers - viruses and critical errors and format c: every 4-6 months

[Psionic001 @ Jul 6th 2007 6:10PM]

For some reason I read that village name as Spytech. Damn Pirates!

[paul34 @ Feb 15th 2007 10:43PM]

Wow, a lot of elitism in this thread. If you want to enter this whole globalism game, you need to be modern. That means running modern software. Yea... that expensive software.

Just because a country can't afford something doesn't mean they don't "deserve" it. What kind of ridiculous judgement is that? Who gave you that right to say such a thing?

If bread went to $100 a loaf globally (just bear with me as an example), and people in developing nations couldn't afford it, but we still could, would that mean that they "deserve" to die? No. And guess what? Some people's livelihoods depend on making money in this global market...

Think about your fellow human before you speak, folks.

[rrfghdgfgh @ Feb 17th 2007 7:15PM]

Thanks. This was the only reasonable comment here.

When I read Prodigy1983's first comment, I thought: Ohoh, smells like a libertarian.

[John Bailey @ Feb 15th 2007 11:21PM]

I read somewhere else that this school and many others are now switching to Linux. Sounds like a good result to me.. No more piracy, so no problem.

[Markus @ Feb 16th 2007 12:50AM]

Finally some good news on this world. This poor teacher who only wanted to give his pupils the right education environment. I can't understand how Microsoft can't like that? Hey these will be all be new Windows users. The only thing he did wrong was to choose windows as OS for his PC lab. As we all know there would be other solutions ...

[CB @ Feb 16th 2007 4:18AM]

Trivial describes it and the good news is the court action has moved him to Linux , 1 step nearer to the day that POS MS is removed from computers worldwide.

[dll @ Feb 16th 2007 6:50AM]

first of all, i'm pretty much sure, that the software was indeed pre-installed. it happens a lot in russia, though lately you'd get an absolutely legal copy of software in this case. so i guess it's the computer store that microsoft should blame, not the teacher.

secondly, though the guy didn't pay for the computers out of his own pocket, i don't think he can afford a bottle of cristall. an average wage of a school techer in russia is about $230-250 a month. so ponosov will probably buy a bottle of "sovetskoe" sparkling wine.

[n8diggity @ Feb 16th 2007 2:07PM]

The thing that really disturbs me is the guy's name PONOSOV...
PONOS is Russian for diarrhea. Microsoft and the Russian gov't should know that you can never win against diarrhea. You gamble with it, you lose. Every time.

[outoffocuz @ May 7th 2007 1:00PM]

Hey...wait a minute here. Just wireless a/b/g? I thought the Santa Rosa chipset was all about integrating 802.11 n with the Merom processors. Why no n WiFi here?