Eric Lundgren has a business that recycles old PCs and other electronic waste by replacing bad parts and patching new devices together from functioning parts.
He is now facing prison time for having created Windows restore CDs with the intention of selling them.
The restore program can be downloaded from the original computer manufacturer and will only work for licence key holders.
Microsoft attorneys successfully argued that the value of older versions of Windows are the same as new versions of Windows and valued the "theft" at $420,000, for which they initially sought restitution, despite the fact that Lundgren never actually sold any of the CDs.
Lundgren believes that the purchasers of the computers should be entitled to the CDs because contained on them are programs they can legally download and install from the original computer manufacturer and he just eliminated an extra step for them, and that Microsoft is contributing to the e-waste problem with their policies. For those of you who don't know, some older system can't run newer Windows operating systems, and must run Windows XP, 2000, ME, Home, 98, or even 95 or 3.1.
He faces 15 months in prison.
tl;dr Microsoft still it's same old self.
I recall there was a big debate when dual core CPU systems first came out. At the time, Microsoft licence agreements were written such that they stipulated they were good for a single CPU and the worry was they would force owners of dual core systems to pay double the price for the OS.
e-Waste Recycler Faces Prison for CDs
07 Apr 2018, 1:21 am
