Go big, or go home.
I have to admire a crook that thinks big. From the story, his only real mistake was travelling to the US. Also since he targeted two companies I don't really like very much, I find myself sitting here smiling.
A Chinese national has admitted he coordinated a massive piracy ring that shifted more than $100m in bootleg Microsoft gear. Orland Liu, 37, was said to be part of an international operation that included himself and at least seven other counterfeiters and resellers in the US who knowingly shifted knock-off copies of software …
As much as I think that especially Microsoft software is massively overprices sh*te, I disagree.
I care less about the big boys because they've raked in enough with the usual shady practices to maintain a monopoly, but the side effect of this business is that the small developers take a hit too, and if you small outfit you can't afford the hit on revenue. This is one of the advantages of the walled gardens of software like Apple: a dev doesn't have to worry too much about bootleg - up to you to consider if that is worth handing off 30% of your income, but it's an argument.
It's not just the big companies who suffer from piracy.
It's unfortunate you have tunnel vision.
There are a lot of smaller companies who will lose a large amount of money because of this. These companies may have to lay off people or keep from hiring new individuals. Let's hope your employer or the employer of someone you care about isn't one of them.
"let's hope his many hidden bitcoins can help heal 10 years of ass drilling trauma"
I find it rather sad that so many have the impression that the US prison system consists of male on male anal rape for everyone. Even sadder is the actual incidence levels of male on male anal rape in the US prison system, which, while nowhere near as prevalent as some here think (or wish for), is well above the level of every other civilised country. I wonder if said commentards are jealous?
The report states that he bought the licenses in China and re-sold them in the US on newly minted English language cards (sounds like grey import).
Then authorities found $20M in unsold licenses... But Orland was arrested with $80M in stolen licenses.
So, were the licenses bought in China or stolen in China? And surely, if Ornald was arrested with $80M in licenses, that would make either $80M in unsold licenses or $100M in unsold licenses...
The confusion in the report makes it hard to make any sense of what happened and how much of it is truthful.
@big_d
i wish i could upvote you more than once.
it grates when you read the story and come away confused as the journalist is either deliberately trying to confuse or just doesn't know enough about the subject to realise the write up is confusing. Either way for a tech site this article should be much better on the detail that counts as the vast majority of readers deal in minutia constantly and it matters.