Please watch this PSA from Microsoft on how to summon men in unitards

[unjapanologist]

Found via Techdirt: a video from Microsoft that "informs" you about the dangers of counterfeit software. The dangers consist of strangely clad men who will invade your office to hide in your copy machines, steal your external hard drives, and abscond with your credit cards and desktops. Conventionally attractive women are particularly at risk of this.

Piracy Lurks Everywhere (2min)

If you're now feeling thoroughly uninformed about counterfeit software, you can go to the official Microsoft site that the video mentions. Techdirt says that it's so poorly designed that it looks like it might be hawking counterfeit software itself. I can't honestly confirm this, since the site refuses to display properly in Chrome, Firefox, and on my Android phone in Dolphin or the native browser. Presumably only those who use IE deserve to be saved from the men in unitards.

One might be tempted to shelve this one with all the other blatantly fear-mongering and uninformative warnings about counterfeit and "pirated" goods that the copyright industry tends to churn out. I'm going for an attempt at self-deprecating comedy myself.

By the way, I really recommend Techdirt as a source for the latest copyright-related good news, bad news, and funny news. There's a lot of copyright-related sources in my RSS reader, and I get the impression that most of the important and interesting happenings around copyright all end up on Techdirt sooner or later. Also at @techdirt.

Comments

[foxinthestars]

Well, at least it's not wallowing in the "sharing=theft" meme, but I suppose it is their old trick of conflating lots of different problems into a cartoonishly hairy ball of "THEY are the enemy and only Big Brother IP Owner can keep you safe and your women and children wholesome and pure."

[unjapanologist]

at least it's not wallowing in the "sharing=theft" meme

Well, I think this was for advanced users who are indoctrinated smart enough to know that sharing is theft. The curly-haired woman didn't click on the P2P link, did she? She knew better. Like we all should.

...I think I should go have more coffee to drown this excess snark in.

[foxinthestars]

Of course, with that, they leave themselves open to the snark that the P2P stuff would have been safer.

[unjapanologist]

That is the least of the snark options they open themselves up to with this thing :D But in all seriousness, you'd almost think they're trying to deliberately confuse people.