Why the hell didn't the prosecutors just ring up the guy and say, "Hey, Microsoft is pretty pissed about these disks. If you don't [destroy them / remove their logo] we'll have to prosecute you."
They have exactly that kind of discretion.
Lundgren wasn't setup, he wasn't coerced into doing something illegal. He was or was planning to do it and they just called him up and asked to be a customer.
This is similar to busting people for prostitution. You can either spend extraordinary time and effort in surveillance to catch them in the act. Or you can just dress in civilian clothing and approach them.
I'm also not convinced something like this didn't happened. All of his exposing about Microsoft double dipping and the whole system being designed to scam people out of money makes me suspicious of his true motivations.
Microsoft stepped forward and corrected Federal Prosecutors who initially sought $299 per violation. They stated that they sold refurbishers licenses for $25 and the discs had at most a $20 value.
Lundgren was convicted of counterfeiting and copyright violation, not piracy and is even quoted as saying if he'd labeled the discs differently this would have never happened. I'm curious if that statement was based on what he ultimately got convicted of or something else?
This strikes me as the far more reasonable outcome that didn't happen.
>I'm curious if that statement was based on what he ultimately got convicted of or something else?
Who knows. As a practical matter, I do see a chilling effect coming out of this judgement for those reselling Windows boxes - either don't do it or make damn sure you have your legal ducks in a row.
(edit:formatting)