Vole gets tough with Jordanian pirates

MICROSOFT HAS ITS Volish hair all knotted and tangled over international software smuggling operations and has today announced new plans to get them all off the map.

The Vole specifies in a press release that there are companies in Jordan and "elsewhere" who have made millions of bucks by illegally trafficking low-priced software originally intended for education programs, at least, according to latest the Microsoft lawsuits.

Over fifty cease and desist letters have been chucked around by the company so far in a hope to put an end to the trafficking.

Bonnie MacNaughton reckons she has the more cynical readers entirely sussed, mentioning to those who think software piracy is a victimless crime, that "the defendants in these lawsuits and others are charged with profiting from selling clearly marked educational software to unsuspecting retail customers who are not licensed to use it - and potentially depriving students and schools of the opportunity to benefit from the latest technologies."

Are you talking about Vista, Bonnie? I'm not too sure that many of us are ready to benefit from that, just yet.

Microsoft has only News Of The World-style "named and shamed" one of these companies, the despicable thorn in the Volish side that is EDirectSoftware.com, clearly flogging student gear stamped with all sorts of annoying "not for retail or OEM distribution" stickers. Tsk, tsk, tsk. µ