Microsoft Anti-Piracy Letter

[Bro]

Recently the business I work at received a letter from Microsoft(below).

I was wondering what would happen if Microsoft caught a business where people sell illegitimate copies, or selling incomplete copies of OEM software? Do they just send an angry letter?

[shady-elite]

HAHAHA, Microsoft spend more money on stopping piracy than they lose from it, LMAO

[Beausiph]

I don't even.... It IS Canada though :P

[TechBlitZ]

Is that letter legit? If it was a scam they would probably ask for money or would have sent it in an email. The letter is abit vague tho, they don't say whether or not you have done anything wrong, just sounds like a warning to me, Id say it's legit if that's what your asking.

[yandaman]

I'm confused.... "your organization was offering to supply legitimate Microsoft Software" Isn't selling legitimate Microsoft software a good thing for Microsoft or have I been using legitimate and illegitimate wrong my whole life....

[Ghost]

HAHAHA' date=' Microsoft spend more money on stopping piracy than they lose from it, LMAO[/quote']

I highly highly doubt that. An Win 7 x64 Ultimate edition costs a LOT of money.

[Guest]

There is no way that letter is legit - the strange spacing, the lack of a contact name or signature....

[Haru]

I can understand their frustrations with piracy, as it is a problem. Personally I don't think it'd be much of a problem if they tried lowering their price points. Look at apple, releasing new revisions to OSX for $15-$30. If you don't think updates to Windows are that simple you might wanna take a look at the version numbers of 7 and 8. 6.1 and 6.2. Now I know a new version of windows coming out looks like a massive upgrade, but think in comparison to apple who has smaller releases, but a lot of them. If you added up all of those smaller changes between Windows' release cycle don't you think it'd add up? Imagine if instead of a whole new operating system, Windows had a paid update for specific features you could add? If I've learned anything from TF2 it's that micro-transactions work, I'd really like to think that this is the future.

[Guest]

Oh and I just remembered one more thing - that's the wrong Microsoft logo assuming this is recent.

[Baxterz]

Yeah I'm started to believe this isn't legit. The weird spacing halfway through doesn't seem like something Microsoft would do.

[SemiSolid1]

Oh and I just remembered one more thing - that's the wrong Microsoft logo assuming this is recent.

It is recent it says 2012

[Guest]

Oh and I just remembered one more thing - that's the wrong Microsoft logo assuming this is recent.

It is recent it says 2012

I'm talking around the time of their logo change - have a look at microsoft.com then look at the logo in the letter - two different logo's and Microsoft aren't the type to make silly errors like that.

[IdeaStormer]

If it was truly Microsoft you'd (your company or ex company) it would of been a certified letter as in delivered via postal employee by hand and requiring a signature and the parties involved would be lawyer-ing up so to speak.

[Bro]

If it was truly Microsoft you'd (your company or ex company) it would of been a certified letter as in delivered via postal employee by hand and requiring a signature and the parties involved would be lawyer-ing up so to speak.

It was sent via CanadaPost with regular store mail. I'm almost 100% sure it's sent from an affiliated third party legal team Microsoft hired here locally. If you look closely, the page is physically watermarked with a logo. However I've still been wondering what happens when they find a store selling illegitimate copies, do they send angry letters or sue you to the moon?

[bordrx]

if they found you selling illegitimate copies they would notify whatever authority handles piracy in your country so you would be brought up on criminal charges AND sue you for punitive damages ... why would they settle for "angry letters" when they have armies of lawyers with nothing to do all day.

[gasho]

It is so fake. I mean every big company first of all has extra big signatures with all kinds of information's on them. The spacing is all wrong in some lines. And how the whole thing is put together just puts a big red light on.

[Puppet]

I really thought it was going to ask for your bank account details and sort code at the bottom, so disappointing :( Even fraudsters cannot do their job right these days

[Bro]

I don't understand some of you guys. If it's fake, then why would someone send that in the mail to my store? There's no reason for it to be fake. They've sent them before years ago as well.

[ramzorz]

I've never seen anything like this from any corporation. If anything, Microsoft does have employees looking around, but they certainly won't send mundane letters, wasting time just to say "We checked out your Windows Software and it wasn't illegal. High five!".Then again, there's no real reason why anyone else would send this letter just for fun...

[Puppet]

I was just kidding, but the things that threw me off were fairly obvious, whats the deal with the formatting of the text? Also it says "your organization was offering to supply legitimate Microsoft software" which is confusing as this means your selling legal copies, whats wrong with that?

The logos seem a bit dodgy, although it does appear to have a watermark. Can't think of a valid reason on how this could be a scam though, sorry, but still I wouldn't worry about it...Anyways its good advice, you don't want your customers coming back complaining about that WGA bull, you get enough of it with a genuine copy..