Microsoft Issues Firm Denial Amid Piracy Accusations
As a founding member of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), Microsoft is a strong proponent of anti-piracy regulation, software copyright protection and consumer education. Despite all of its anti-piracy bravado, Microsoft found itself on the receiving end of accusations that it used an illegal copy of SoundForge to edit wave files that shipped as part of the Windows Media Player Tour in Windows XP. In response a report published by the German technology magazine PC-WELT alleging malfeasance, Microsoft told BetaNews that shipping content in the released version of the tour was developed using licensed software.
Erin Cullen, Lead Product Manager of the Windows Consumer Division fingers a placeholder file that was overwritten with original music, but mistakenly was not purged of metadata that references "Deepz0Ne," a founding member of an audio software cracking group known as Radium. Coincidentally, metadata also linked the file to SoundForge 4.5. The contested file can be found in the Windows directory at the location: HelpToursWindowsMediaPlayerAudioWav.
