That is the way copyright works in general, except it isn't the way the Internet works. When I download from Microsoft, I actually am getting a secondhand copy

That is the way copyright works in general, except it isn't the way the Internet works. When I download from Microsoft, I actually am getting a secondhand copy from my ISP, who got it maybe from Microsoft, or maybe some other party in the chain between me and Microsoft. In addition, if we are talking about general content of the Microsoft website, search engines routinely index store and cache the contents, and offer to serve it to third parties, without any intervention from Microsoft. So no, if you post it on a website society recognizes that you are offering to allow a host of intermediaries copy and serve the content to intended end-users. Maybe this guy isn't all that sympathetic, maybe it's a little confusing because we are talking about CDs and binaries, but when you sit down and think about it this decision makes no sense. What a colossal waste of resources.