Microsoft used pirated music software - report

ONLINE MAGAZINE Techrepublic thinks that it has found proof that the software giant Microsoft has been using pirated .wav files in Windows XP.

Hacks went through Wav files on XP using an editor and found in the Windows help files nine WAV files which provide background sound during the Windows Media Player Tour.

When these files were opened in notepad, the hacks found a type of watermarking, which records the software that the Microsoft musician used to create the WAV files. There, in all its glory, was the line "LISTB INFOICRD 2000-04-06 IENG Deepz0ne ISFT Sound Forge 4.5"

Normally this would mean that Vole uses Sony's Sound Forge 4.5 to create the files. However the word "DeepzOne" is an odd thing to appear in the line, say the Techrepublicans.

It turns out that DeepzOne was the co-founder of a Warez group Radium that had specialised on cracking music software since 1997. One of his claims to fame was that he started circulating a cracked 4.5 version of Sound Forge.

In the view of Techrepublic it would seem that Vole or one of the freelancers who were making the Wave files were using a cracked version of Sound Forge 4.5 as cracked by DeepzOne. µ

L'INQ
Techrepublic piece