TR Forums

The Ars article was a bit more detailed than the OP link. Appears that Lundgren literally took a Dell-specific Windows recovery disc and contracted a Chinese vendor to duplicate it in every way possible, including the labels with Dell and Microsoft logos. And this was back in 2011/2012, before Windows 8 was released with a blitz of $40 promotional CoAs, and long before Microsoft started making free digital download its primary method of distribution.

For those whose memories are fuzzy, this was waaaay back when an iPhone 4S was the new hotness and LTE was not really a thing. For this guy to think he could spend $80k to contract a Chinese supplier for an order 28k pressed discs and not run into legal problems would be an eyebrow-raiser right now. To do it in that historical context was bafflingly naiive. And in that context, the court's finding of a $25/disc damage is about right, since that was the primary method of getting a replacement copy (from Dell or Microsoft) at the time.

The sentence seems harsh based on the lack of motive, but he did everything any other bulk software counterfeiter could/would do and Customs handled it accordingly.

Glorious wrote:

As I already stated, those were pressed disks. So, no, as a factual matter, not "anyone" can do it. I can't imagine what the minimum run of a CD pressing costs, but it's got to be a lot.

Not that it matters: People pay for things they could do themselves all the time. That's not really relevant....

What is relevant is the obvious implication: commercial bootlegging of DVDs/Blu-rays would be legal under your definition, because, yes, anyone can download that stuff off of torrents and newsgroups and watch them with free software or burn them etc...

First of all, the *functionality* of those discs is what's irrelevant, not the disks themselves. Secondly, the article didn't indicate that they were literal copies of Dell/MS discs including all the logos. That is definitely illegal, and also explains why Customs got involved.

I was under the assumption that these were unlabeled blanks because why the hell would he do something that stupid?

Vhalidictes wrote:

Secondly, the article didn't indicate that they were literal copies of Dell/MS discs including all the logos. That is definitely illegal, and also explains why Customs got involved.

I was under the assumption that these were unlabeled blanks because why the hell would he do something that stupid?

Wouldn't matter. If they contain copyrighted material that's not authorized by the copyright holder for redistribution, then eventually someone is going to notice. And to that second point, I suspect a shipment of 28,000 pressed CDs with blank labels would be even more suspicious than what he actually did.

If you copy an Office installer to a burned CD on behalf of your aunt who has a valid license card but a lousy Internet connection, it's likely Microsoft will never find out, and not care about it even if they do. That's not the kind of thing they have time to worry about. But if you start manufacturing hundreds or thousands of copies with the obvious intent of redistributing them far and wide, then they're going to have a problem; and shortly afterward, you are going to have a problem.

Unluckily for Lundgren, Customs found it first, so it immediately became, quite literally, a federal case.