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> I made a poor decision to distribute a trial Windows 2019 SQL Server virtual machine images (fully patched with all necessary drivers and VM extensions) in the form of a qcow2 file.

The article doesn't use the term "piracy", but I'm curious what Microsoft's license says about public redistribution.

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It would perhaps legally be more acceptable, and more efficient in bandwidth, to create a binary patch that makes an official virtual machine image into what the author offered ("fully patched with all necessary drivers and VM extensions").

Is it considered piracy to distribute a free trial?

I'm not a lawyer, but generally a software license can set limits on redistribution. Redistribution outside the terms of the license is likely copyright infringement.

Some sources define piracy as redistribution outside the terms of the license. That implies that you can pirate free software, if you violate the license.

Without getting bogged down on definitions, I believe MS could issue takedown requests to anyone hosting their free trials, when the license forbids it.

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