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A woman, Brenda Avery, in rural New Brunswick, was charged by the police with piracy after Microsoft spies claimed to have found pirated disks of their applications in her computer store.
The RCMP entered her home and arrested her and her husband even though he had no involvement in the computer store. Brenda Avery defended herself in court and won. The article in the Canadian Press does not describe her defense. Was the software not pirated after all, or was she unaware of the illegitimate source of the disk? It doesn't say.
But the Crown urged her to plead guilty. Why?
Because it's more efficient that way. The RCMP charged her in the first place at the request of Microsoft. What I want to know is, if I charge Microsoft with marketing defective products and, through their negligence and incompetence, costing me hours and hours and hours of work, and possible job promotions, and money-- can I get the RCMP to burst into Microsoft headquarters and seize the relevant documents and arrest Belinda Gates?
Well, maybe if I wear a suit and wave around some documents.
Why is it that the police didn't investigate the issue? They didn't-- obviously. They simply took Microsoft's word for it. That's outrageous.
In any case, I took note of the case because I have said here before that the standard End User License Agreement that we all pretend to assent to when we install software is worthless and unenforceable and this looked, at first, as if it might prove me wrong. It didn't. First of all, the charges were laid against a store, not an "End User".
Secondly, the charges failed.
Copyright © 2001 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.
