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Why pirated Vista has Microsoft champing at BitTorrent

26.01.2007
As Microsoft Corp. gets ready to launch Windows Vista and Office 2007 to consumers, it claims a formidable new foe it lacked at its last major consumer software launch five years ago: the popular filesharing network known as BitTorrent.

This third-generation peer-to-peer (P2P) service, already used by tens of millions of Internet users to swap digital music and movies for free, is becoming a popular mechanism for those looking to obtain pirated software.

"Any software that is commercially available is available on BitTorrent," according to Mark Ishikawa, CEO of BayTSP Inc., a Los Gatos, Calif., antipiracy consulting firm.

Piracy and prerelease

Or in the case of Vista and Office 2007, before they were commercially available. Both products were released to corporations almost two months ago, but won't be officially launched to consumers until Jan. 29.

But as early as mid-November, "cracked" copies of both products were available via BitTorrent. As of mid-January, more than 100 individual copies of Office 2007 and more than 350 individual copies of Windows Vista were available on the service, according to BigChampagne LLC, a Los Angeles-based online media-tracking firm.