Earth to Microsoft: Eastern European users aren't the enemy

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 06 February 2007 09:11

Opinion and Analysis

The news that a principal of a provincial Russian school who unwittingly purchased computers for his school pre-loaded with pirated Microsoft software could be facing five years in a Siberian prison camp seems incredible. What is even more incredible is that, unlike Russian leaders and luminaries, Microsoft doesn't seem to care and is egging Russian prosecutors on.

The case of Alexander Ponosov, a principal of a remote provincial middle school in the Urals, has captured worldwide attention, not least because Russian President Vladimir Putin has condemned the prosecution as ridiculous and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev has publicly appealed to Bill Gates to intervene.

There is no doubt that like the two giant emerging economies of Asia, India and China, Eastern Europe is a hotbed of software piracy. Last week, Romanian President Traian Basescu probably gave Bill Gates one of his most embarrassing moments in public by proclaiming that software piracy helped the young generation discover computers and set off the development of the IT industry in Romania.

Russia, where software piracy is particularly rife, is determined to be seen to be taking a tough stance because it wants to gain membership to the World Trade Organization. If the country can demonstrate that its judiciary is making a serious attempt to collar software pirates, it believes it may be able to score some browny points with the WTO. Fair enough but why go after the hapless teacher and not the supplier?

As Mr Gorbachev pointed out in his public letter: "Russian criminal code makes it possible to punish even those, who use pirate production in ignorance, without suspecting its illegal origin." The former Soviet President rightly describes a process whereby law enforcement agencies have ignored the suppliers and instead hit a dedicated and modestly compensated teacher with no profit motive as scandalous.