Microsoft Sees ‘Tomato Garden’ Windows pirates jailed in China
The chances are most of us have had a pirated copy of Windows at some point or another. They’re not exactly hard to come by. The problem is probably greatest in China at the moment, with piracy of all kinds out of control. The good news is that four people have been convicted of pirating Windows XP in China. The bad news is this is just the tip of a very large iceberg.
To say piracy of Microsoft’s Windows operating system is rife would be the understatement of the year. Despite anti-piracy measures galore, which tend to be upped with each successive OS, dodgy copies still make their way on to the streets and on to people’s computers.
China is the main offender right now, with piracy of every form of digital media rife in the country, Windows operating systems being no exception. And Microsoft has struggled to make headway in cracking down on Windows piracy in China because the problem is major and the help it gets from the authorities is minor.
However, Computer World reports how four people were sentenced last week to terms in jail for pirating Windows XP. The convicted men stripped the anti-piracy measures out of XP and made the modified version available to download from their Tomato Garden Web site. They made money from advertising on the site, and 10 million people are believed to have downloaded the illegal copy of Windows.
Hong Lei, the main man behind Tomato Garden, and Sun Xiansheng, the online marketing manager for the site, were each given prison sentences of three-and-a-half years and fined 1 million yuan ($146,150). Liang Chaoyong and Zhang Tianping, who were also involved in the reproduction and distribution of the pirated XP were each given two-year prison sentences and fined 100,000 yuan.
Microsoft issued a statement applauding the convictions:
Microsoft applauds the efforts of government enforcement agencies and the court. Microsoft will continue to cooperate closely with the Chinese government and local industry partners to promote respect for intellectual property rights.
While this is a good start, piracy of Windows products is so rife in China I wonder if it will ever be reduced to a reasonable level. Pirated copies of Windows are available everywhere for next to nothing in China, and Windows 7 has already been pirated and is being sold there after the Lenovo OEM master key was leaked.
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August 26th, 2009
That’s really shocking news. Hong Lei has been arrested for three and half years for ‘Tomato Garden’ Microsoft piracy. This incident has been into a lot of publicity.
September 26th, 2009
Hai Guys. Please give the URL for downloading the tomato garden edition.