Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Fight Enters a New Stage

Microsoft has come up with a new way of fighting international software piracy. This week, on Monday it launches an on-line campaign named "Genuine Fact Files". Microsoft states that the campaign will make more people aware of all the aspects of using licensed software versus fraudulent one.

First of all, the campaign is meant to reveal the advantages of using licensed software, explaining the users the perspectives of intellectual property rights. This way Microsoft hopes to provide people with additional information on the issue that will help them make the right decision.

The campaign has already been held on-line in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Italy, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates. Now it is aimed at the USA customers.

The campaign is to be presented with help of special banner adds placed on Microsoft's websites. It also implies hanging out the promotional material through partners of the corporation. It is essential that the campaign is based on comics created in black and white that resemble newspaper comics. The usage of comics has added clarity and accessibility to the message of the campaign that will no doubt attract broader audience.

Microsoft corporation has been actively fighting the pirated software since the middle of 2005. It is necessary for present day users of Windows first to check their license with Microsoft in digital way, and only then download additional software of the corporation. Microsoft has elaborated a specialized service that is responsible for verifying the legality of Windows installations. The service applies the same Automatic Updates attribute that is used for delivering security patches.

It is natural that not all the users of Microsoft software are enthusiastic about the piracy fight. However, the corporation has all the legal and moral rights to continue the battle as the fraudulent products severely damage its sales rate and consequently profits. According to the report of the Business Software Alliance, over a third of all the software set up in 2005 was not licensed.

The measures taken by the Microsoft Corporation are all important as they offer the protection of the company's intellectual property and shareholders' interests. The anti-piracy campaign also supports the interests of the authorized resellers of Microsoft software. It helps to avoid cases when modified software badly affects users.

The corporation has already invested a few millions dollars into software piracy fighting but it is difficult to say for sure whether its efforts have been paid off by the present time. In any case, Microsoft is not going to stop the battle as this is a "multi-winning game". The company hopes for getting the expected results in the nearest future.

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