4 ms·

He was trying to sell the disks to repair shops, complete with MS branding. That's the line.

by ng12 9y ago

devy 9y ago
Yes, WaPo article [1] mentioned that “If I had just written ‘Eric’s Restore Disc’ on there, it would have been fine.” [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/02/15/eric-lundgren-e-waste-recycling-innovator-faces-prison-for-trying-to-extend-lifespan-of-pcs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/02/15...
- Hamuko 9y ago
  Except that if professional refurbishers had computers with a valid Certificate of Authenticity, but a disc that said "Eric's restore disc", they would've had to buy new Windows licenses for the computers because the license is not valid without the original restore media. Otherwise they would have been guilty of copyright infringement and subject to possible legal action by Microsoft for selling unlicensed copies of Windows.
deleted 9y ago
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lawnchair_larry 9y ago
A more reasonable interpretation of this is that the purpose of the disc had to be clear. If a customer needs something to restore their Dell, they are looking for something that says it’s a Dell restore disk. If there were a profit component to this, using their trademark looks damning. In context, though, it’s clear that the intention is convenience for the customer to identify the correct tool. That doesn’t grant an exemption to violating trademarks, but the penalty should be proportional. For 28,000 discs at 25 cents each, after shipping and printing costs, this guy is not making money. Throwing him in jail for helping confused old people get their PC back up and running is a travesty.
- Hamuko 9y ago
  He was not selling the discs for 25 cents each. That's the story he's spinning in the media to look like the good guy. You can see in the appeals document that his price was not near 25 cents. >Lundgren objected to the PSR infringement amount. He argued that the Sentencing Guidelines required the court to use an infringement amount of about $4 per disk, which was the price for which Lundgren and Wolff were selling their copies.

He was trying to sell the disks to repair shops, complete with MS branding. That's the line.

by ng12 9y ago

He was trying to sell the disks to repair shops, complete with MS branding. That's the line.

devy 9y ago

Yes, WaPo article [1] mentioned that “If I had just written ‘Eric’s Restore Disc’ on there, it would have been fine.” [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/02/15/eric-lundgren-e-waste-recycling-innovator-faces-prison-for-trying-to-extend-lifespan-of-pcs/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/02/15...

Hamuko 9y ago
Except that if professional refurbishers had computers with a valid Certificate of Authenticity, but a disc that said "Eric's restore disc", they would've had to buy new Windows licenses for the computers because the license is not valid without the original restore media. Otherwise they would have been guilty of copyright infringement and subject to possible legal action by Microsoft for selling unlicensed copies of Windows.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lawnchair_larry 9y ago

A more reasonable interpretation of this is that the purpose of the disc had to be clear. If a customer needs something to restore their Dell, they are looking for something that says it’s a Dell restore disk. If there were a profit component to this, using their trademark looks damning. In context, though, it’s clear that the intention is convenience for the customer to identify the correct tool. That doesn’t grant an exemption to violating trademarks, but the penalty should be proportional. For 28,000 discs at 25 cents each, after shipping and printing costs, this guy is not making money. Throwing him in jail for helping confused old people get their PC back up and running is a travesty.

Hamuko 9y ago
He was not selling the discs for 25 cents each. That's the story he's spinning in the media to look like the good guy. You can see in the appeals document that his price was not near 25 cents. >Lundgren objected to the PSR infringement amount. He argued that the Sentencing Guidelines required the court to use an infringement amount of about $4 per disk, which was the price for which Lundgren and Wolff were selling their copies.