Microsoft, championing the cause of worldwide student access to its Windows software, says such students are being deprived of Windows and Microsoft Office software by smugglers. So the company filed nine lawsuits last week against companies that, it says, are buying discounted software packages intended for students and reselling them on the Internet at marked-up prices.
The scheme involves companies, some based in Jordan, that buy software marked "student media" and "not for resale" and pass it along to Internet resellers, who then sell it to consumers at much higher prices. Because of this diversion, the inexpensive software never makes it into students' hands.
Though the resellers are based in the United States, Jordan's minister of information, quoted in a Microsoft press release, says that smugglers in his country "will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law." –Josh Fischman
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