Four Chinese Windows XP pirates get what is coming to them finally!

Jail time and fines ! $

Published on August 24, 2009 By ShelbyGT_The_Car In Everything Else

Well the headlines read today of what you get for being a bad guy in a foriegn country - even China.

Microsoft won another battle in its seemingly-endless war against software piracy as a Beijing court has sentenced four individuals to a maximum of 3.5 years of jail time for distributing hax0red versions of Windows XP. The quartet in question is behind Windows XP 'Tomato Garden', a 'tweaked' Windows XP release that lacks piracy protection.

With 10 million downloads of Tomato Garden unable to be ignored, the court has decided that two of the men accused should get 3.5 years in jail and a fine of one million yuan ($146,000) each, while the others would get 2 years in jail an a 100,000 yuan fine.

In addition to the individual sentences, the ruling sees the company that operated the Tomato Garden site being fined 8.7 million yuan ($1.27 million).

As expected, Microsoft declared itself pleased with the court's decision and said it would continue to work with Chinese authorities to protect its property.

What country is next?

Comments (Page 2)

landisaurus

on Aug 24, 2009

Three and a half years for software piracy? That seems a bit excessive.......

I was just thinking that wasn't that much. Considering just how many people have a copy of "tomato garden" XP. It is such a 'safe' way to pirate windows XP that I do believe it has seriously hurt XP sales. I know a number of people who would wipe their store purchased PCs and laptops to replace them with tomato garden XP installs using the legal keys they recieved with the OS as a method of removing all the "trash" that tends to come with OEM installed copies of XP.

LightStar

on Aug 24, 2009

Three and a half years for software piracy? That seems a bit excessive.......

That is not in the least bit excessive, in my opinion software piracy should be life imprisonment, without a chance of parole! No one has the right to pirate software, absolutely no one. I mean come on now, I sell a few themes on my site for a small charge and then find illegal copies of them all over the internet. For someone like me that is devastating. 3.5 years excessive? Hah, not hardly.

pjdark

on Aug 24, 2009

They got a kid narc squad over there. Probably got ratted out by one of their nephews/nieces. @ Lightstar.... a life sentence? LOL.

WIllythemailboy

on Aug 24, 2009

It's China, they are quite lucky they weren't shot without trial. In the US, they could have used Yucca Mountain as a prison, as the nuclear waste would be ready to see daylight before they would. What is the proper sentence for someone who commits a crime worth 3-5 years, but does it ten million times? The closest thing I can think of is what Bernie Madoff got.

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