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Title: Innovative Engineer Sentenced to Prison for Recycling Old Computers Instead of Trashing Them
Source:
Free Thought Project
URL Source: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/in ... mputers-instead-throwing-away/
Published: Feb 18, 2018
Author: Jack Burns
Post Date: 2018-02-19 08:38:59 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1970
Comments: 17
Eric Lundgren, an innovative computer engineer, may have to spend 15 months in prison for saving the environment and recycling computers. Even though Lundgren has a successful computer recycling business, the thought of throwing away or destroying so many PCs was unsettling. So he hatched a plan to copy and sell to refurbishers PCs with Microsoft restore discs. However, when the company learned what he was doing, they tried to put him in prison. Piracy is a crime and affects the bottom line profits of video game manufacturers, Hollywood films, and software companies like Microsoft. But a Microsoft restore disc is included when someone buys a computer and is available as a free download when someone can prove their product key for Windows belongs to them. But for people who buy a second-hand computer, if the product key to the copy of Windows does not belong to them (registered with Microsoft) the computer is worthless and must be thrown away. Equally disturbing to Lundgren was the fact the free restore discs, included with a computer’s purchase, often get lost by the owner, thrown away by a company, or simply misplaced. That easily comprehensible act of negligence made Lundgren’s job of wiping a computer’s hard drive and giving it a fresh installation of Windows nearly impossible. Only with a fresh reinstallation of the operating system could the computer be sold in good faith to a new user. That fact bothered Lundgren, who daily destroyed perfectly good computers all because their product key was missing and/or they weren’t registered with Microsoft. So he and his business partner went to China and located a manufacturer who would create and ship back to the US some 28,000 “Microsoft Windows restore discs.” He intended to sell them to other computer recyclers and not to the general public for $25 each. Remember, Microsoft gives the product away, but proving ownership of the operating system is difficult if not impossible to do, especially if the product’s key code is invalid or not registered to the new buyer. Even though Lundgren never sold a copy of the “restore” disc, its manufacture bypassed Microsoft altogether and allowed for recyclers to quickly offer for sale quality computers who still had a lot of life left in their systems. Lundgren lost in court and was at the moment of surrendering to the prison industrial complex to serve out his 15-month sentence when his case was accepted at the 11th circuit court of appeals. The original judge in the case, Senior U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley, seemed to realize Lundgren’s actions were taken more as an attempt to save the environment and be socially responsible with computer trash. He noted Lundgren’s long history of taking care of the environment as well as others. According to the LA Times, Hurley was troubled by the verdict he was forced to apply: “This case is especially difficult,” Hurley told Lundgren at his sentencing last May, “because of who you are today and in terms of who you have become.” The judge received evidence of Lundgren’s recycling company, IT Asset Partners; his projects to clean up e-waste in Ghana and China; and a 2016 initiative in which Lundgren’s company repaired and donated more than 14,000 cellphones and $100,000 to the Cell Phones for Soldiers organization to benefit U.S. soldiers deployed overseas. Lundgren described what he believes is the motivation for his prosecution. He told reporters: In essence, I got in the way of Microsoft’s profits, so they pushed this into federal court on false pretense,” Lundgren said. He said McGloin “testified that a free restore CD was worth the same price as a new Windows operating system with a license. … This was false and inaccurate testimony provided by Microsoft in an attempt to set a precedent that will scare away future recyclers and refurbishers from reusing computers without first paying Microsoft again for another license. … Anyone successfully extending the life cycle of computers or diverting these computers from landfills for reuse in society is essentially standing in the way of Microsoft’s profits.” As it stands, people who buy computers which do not have a working copy of Microsoft Windows installed will have to pay Microsoft for a new copy, an action which usually costs more than the value of the old computer. Doing so is pointless. In fact, a person should just go ahead and purchase a new computer at a big box retailer, instead of paying the same price for an old, used computer. This is precisely the problem Lundgren attempted to solve. Even though the software is free at the time of the original sale and free for download, the mega-company will prosecute anyone who attempts to profit from their free downloads. Lundgren will likely do prison time if the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals does not rule in his favor.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
All the more reason to just wipe the disk and sell them as Linux systems.
These licenses are heavily discounted to OEMs like Dell. The condition is that the licensed copy can only be used on the machine to which it was issued and only for the original owner of that machine. So what he was doing was trying to make a lot of $25 sales to bulk sellers on places like eBay.
He intended to sell them to other computer recyclers and not to the general public for $25 each. Remember, Microsoft gives the product away, but proving ownership of the operating system is difficult if not impossible to do, especially if the product’s key code is invalid or not registered to the new buyer. I bought a refurbished computer a while back. It came with Windows XP already installed. I'm not the original owner and I haven't been hunted down by Microsoft for using their products without a license. Seems to me that this guy is simply doing what thousands of other individuals and companies are doing. That does not make it legal if Microsoft wants to protect its copyrights and the restrictions of its OEM versions of Windows. If you want a full-blown copy of Windows that can be moved from computer to computer as you wish, then buy the full version. Don't just steal someone else's OEM version and then pretend that you are in compliance. Because you aren't. This is nothing new. This is the secret behind how Windows became so dominant, by offering these restricted OEM licenses to dominate the market. Just because some dealer like Dell got a deal to buy a restricted OEM copy of Windows from Microsoft so that it cost each user only $5-$10 (instead of $100 or more for a more unrestricted copy like the full Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate versions) does not mean that you are entitled to treat that as though it is a full unrestricted copy of Windows Professional that can be moved from machine to machine legally.
Individuals wouldn't get targeted in these cases. Companies, if known to MS, can be but it's all on a case by case basis. I'm not sure of details but technically, there may well be infringements. On the other hand, there may be other considerations related to the degree of the offense and reasonableness with regard to the nature of what he was doing and the fact that MS suffered little to no harm, given that MS already received payment for the license. Maybe there's also a monopoly consideration. Maybe his sentence will be reduced to 30 days or something. And maybe people will be inspired to dump windows and go to linux which has none of these infringement issues, especially since linux lets you do just about everything Windows can do, and just as easily.
Linux is pretty much useless for a lot of money making sites. This one, for example: http://www.millisecond.com/
Of course there are numerous outfits making & selling applications that only run in Windows (or Mac as your link provides) but that's not a deal killer for Linux users. It's called "virtualization", when a windows program can run on a linux operating system machine. One application available for Linux users is called "Wine", which is short for WINdows Emulator. It's a linux program that will open up a windows program and interpret all relavent Operating System calls to the Linux protocol, and thereby allow the windows program to function on a Linux system as though it were on a Windows system. Most windows programs will run fine on a linux system with Wine. It's not perfect though as some windows apps won't run that way. There are other emulators that do the same thing, but for those tough cases with very far reaching applications, there is VMWare Player, which lets you run windows itself as an application on a linux OS system. Or vice versa. That gives the full windows environment that I have yet to see have any difficulties with any windows app, and it is free. To be legal, you do need to have the windows OS properly licensed, but other than that, it will let you run either windows or linux programs on the same computer at the same time. But usually wine works fine for windows applications. And as time goes on, these cross platform emulators will continue to improve. But we're already at the point where windows is replaceable by linux for most people.
This is what I do. I'm running MacOS and keep my VMware virtual machine(s) running at all times, either active (fully running Windows) or suspended (waiting for me to reactivate them). This means you can run Linux or Mac and still get 100% Windows virtual machines. There are almost no exceptions to what you can do with VMware virtual machines. In addition, it is very easy to just back up a copy of your VMs so that you can restore to it in just a few minutes and get back a clean version of Windows with your favorite apps ready to go. This is very powerful and helpful for security.
Sure, if you're a computer geek with limited real-world needs. Try finding a decent technical-analysis Linux program for markets. Or software for dashcams. Or any number of real-world apps that won't run on Linux. Linux is fine for email, word-processing and checking cat pictures as well as esoteric geekdom stuff. For 95% of real-world users, it's useless.
So there's another sorta-compatible slowdown layer between the Windows app and the hardware. That seems to be moving backwards in terms of performance and compatibility. How about just wiping Linux down to the bare metal and installing Windows?
https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/viewing-dashcam-output-with-linux- ffmpeg.20919/
{ shrug } https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=15280 YMMV!
I do find it resource intensive, at least along side all the demands I have already running on the linux side, so having a system with a good amount of RAM is in order. 32 gigs isn't too much. I've never found any. The only possible one is high end, 3D gaming software, but if you're doing that, you probably aren't using your PC for multitasking anyway, so there'd be no point in running it virtually. That's about the only exception I'm aware of. This cannot be overstated. With this virtualization, your entire operating system becomes much cheaper in terms of time/labor spent on setup, software repair & virus purging. It makes the windows OS disposable. You use it until it stops working, then you throw it away by deleting files in Linux, recopy the backups from when you first installed windows (or after you installed all your needed software and configurations) and presto, you have a brand now installation knowing all viruses or whatever have been completely disposed of and are gone forever. All in minutes anyone can do.
CPU speeds are sufficient these days such that most applications are fine performance wise whether they are running virtually or not. And again, virtualization is only for those apps that have no counterparts in Linux. Web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing are all there already, and Open office can work with MS product formats with no problem. You can, but then you have to deal with licensing & viruses, and pay MS for the privilege of doing so.
The free Wine emulator will run a very large number of those with no problems. But it won't run all of the proprietary Microsoft apps using custom hardware. But Wine and Crossover run 95% of those Windows apps on Linux with no problems.
I have no problems with only 16GB of RAM on an i7 2.4Ghz quadcore CPU. It's plenty enough to run browsers with 40-60 tabs open and a VM running WinXP or Win7 plus a handful of other Mac apps.
Others would say he stole from Microsoft.
#2. To: Deckard (#0)
Equally disturbing to Lundgren was the fact the free restore discs, included with a computer’s purchase, often get lost by the owner, thrown away by a company, or simply misplaced. That easily comprehensible act of negligence made Lundgren’s job of wiping a computer’s hard drive and giving it a fresh installation of Windows nearly impossible. Only with a fresh reinstallation of the operating system could the computer be sold in good faith to a new user.
He intended to sell them to other computer recyclers and not to the general public for $25 each. Remember, Microsoft gives the product away, but proving ownership of the operating system is difficult if not impossible to do, especially if the product’s key code is invalid or not registered to the new buyer.
#3. To: Tooconservative, Pinguinite (#2)
These licenses are heavily discounted to OEMs like Dell. The condition is that the licensed copy can only be used on the machine to which it was issued and only for the original owner of that machine.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.
#4. To: Deckard (#3)
(Edited)
Seems to me that this guy is simply doing what thousands of other individuals and companies are doing.
#5. To: Deckard (#3)
Seems to me that this guy is simply doing what thousands of other individuals and companies are doing.
#6. To: Pinguinite (#1)
#7. To: no gnu taxes (#6)
#8. To: Pinguinite, no gnu taxes (#7)
To be legal, you do need to have the windows OS properly licensed, but other than that, it will let you run either windows or linux programs on the same computer at the same time.
#9. To: Pinguinite (#1)
All the more reason to just wipe the disk and sell them as Linux systems.
#10. To: Pinguinite (#7)
(Edited)
There are other emulators that do the same thing, but for those tough cases with very far reaching applications, there is VMWare Player, which lets you run windows itself as an application on a linux OS system.
#11. To: Hank Rearden (#9)
#12. To: Hank Rearden (#9)
#13. To: Tooconservative (#8)
This is what I do. I'm running MacOS and keep my VMware virtual machine(s) running at all times,
There are almost no exceptions to what you can do with VMware virtual machines.
In addition, it is very easy to just back up a copy of your VMs so that you can restore to it in just a few minutes and get back a clean version of Windows with your favorite apps ready to go. This is very powerful and helpful for security.
#14. To: Hank Rearden (#10)
So there's another sorta-compatible slowdown layer between the Windows app and the hardware. That seems to be moving backwards in terms of performance and compatibility.
How about just wiping Linux down to the bare metal and installing Windows?
#15. To: Hank Rearden (#9)
Try finding a decent technical-analysis Linux program for markets. Or software for dashcams. Or any number of real-world apps that won't run on Linux.
#16. To: Pinguinite (#13)
I do find it resource intensive, at least along side all the demands I have already running on the linux side, so having a system with a good amount of RAM is in order. 32 gigs isn't too much.
#17. To: Deckard (#0)
In essence, I got in the way of Microsoft’s profits,
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