http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?id=24260&category=main
Today is talk like a pirate day and the crazy folks at Microsoft UK have issued a light-hearted press release having a jab at those who use pirated Microsoft products. Although the press release is a joke, Microsoft recently started an optional Windows Validation process on their download servers. At recent conferences before the release of XPSP2 several Microsoft representatives have hinted at possible PID blocking on other Microsoft applications. In simple terms if you have a pirated version of Windows XP and you install an updated application like Windows Media Player, that application will detect your pirated install and will not install. There are also rumours that Microsoft are cracking down on the pirates themselves. Earlier this week the largest seizure of counterfeit Microsoft software and components took place, worth $80 million. For now the pirates are laughing but it looks like Microsoft are beginning to laugh and I'm sure they'll have the last laugh.
MS Press Release:
"Here be monsters
Avast ye, scurvy knaves, beware of piracy!
September 19th in the year of our lord 2004: Ahoy there! Avast ye on Talk Like A Pirate Day!1 Those who sail aboard the good ship Microsoft have a warning for those bilge rats who make choppy the calm seas with their knavish software tricks.
Because those who try to take the piracy off the high seas and onto their PCs face a fate worse than walking the plank. For they risk cursin' their businesses and being left up a creek without a paddle. They be sinkin' too with no patches to shore up systems, and could catch something far worse than scurvy.
Captain Alex Hilton, of the good ship Microsoft, says: "A lack of swordsmanship and sailing skills will leave the landlubbers high and dry."
So, on Talk Like A Pirate Day heed this tale of woe and do not bring the pirates tricks to your PC, for here be monsters. Yaaargh!"