14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently filed a lawsuit against a Comcast subscriber who allegedly activated thousands of copies of software that the company thinks might be stolen from its supply chain.
In the legal complaint (via TorrenFreak), Microsoft explains that someone with the IP address 173.11.224.197 activated thousands of copies of Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server, and Office. This IP belongs to Comcast, and while Microsoft does not yet know the identity of the subscriber, it wants the judge to give it the green light to pursue finding the pirate and sending them to court.
“On information and belief, each of these activations and attempted activations constitutes the unauthorized copying of Microsoft software, in violation of Microsoft’s software licenses and its intellectual property rights,” Redmond says.
Stolen product keys used for activation
In most of the cases, activating pirated copies of Windows doesn’t necessarily mean that Microsoft will come after users, but when several activations are involved, as is the case of the Comcast customer, the company files a legal complaint not only to stop the pirate but also to ask for damages.
The legal complaint also reveals that the pirate used “product keys known to have been stolen from Microsoft’s supply chain or which were used more times than is authorized by the applicable software silence.” Additionally, Redmond explains, “these products keys were used by someone outside of the region for which they were intended or without the authorized licensee.”
At the moment, it’s not yet very clear if the defendant is a single user or a company, but the aforementioned source claims that the latter is more likely, given the fact that it performed thousands of activations. Most likely, this is a company that sells new computers running pirated Windows, so they use illegal product keys to activate the copies of the operating system installed on devices.