I'm pretty sure that's not how copyright works. Besides there's a product key on the download page.
What if I installed a copy of WinXP from my CD with my bought key and it doesn't activate because WGA servers are long offline?
Same, but I use any WGA activation hacks?
Same, but instead of MS copy I used "Delta Edition" distrib?
And by the way, "working" in quotes because even if you have the key - the product key itself doesn't mean nothing except the way to allow installation process to succeed. It even doesn't guarantee what it would accuse you of pirating the said software (see WGA).
> This looks like a lot of effort for pirated software, unless I'm missing something.
This is false. Whatever law may protect Microsoft from people being awesome & investing enormous effort improving their products for them- and I'm sure there are plenty such laws- this claim of piracy seems false.
I do not see any product keys on the download page. These folks have no interest in helping piracy.
It's awesome to me that no one can clearly state what this is a violation of, but we all tend to agree, yes, a rag-tag group of product-loving enthusiasts absolutely have no right to go poke around & make things awesome & cool & to improve the product. That's absolutely not ok. We agree. But we also don't even know why or how we got here & why that is.
It's still not piracy.
I get that you think this project is cool and the authors are doing admirable work. I don’t necessarily disagree there but the reality is this is not legally defensible. It is a violation of copyright to redistribute software without the copyright owner’s permission. That is the definition of software piracy. Whether or not Microsoft pursues legal action is a separate matter.
Other than that, Microsoft has always been fairly relaxed about copying CDs/ISOs (not sure what the license says about it). It's the product key that matters.
You may have clicked the 'Extras Pack' link where there is no serial.
So you'd understand how HN, for instance, has little responsibility with what you post in your comment. I can't claim that "Hackernews posted [your comment]".
That extends to Archive.org and the owners of this project.
That's not true: there is no product key listed on the download page. It sounds like there is a link somewhere on the page that goes to another site that hosts the product key.