Despite their efforts to make pirates pay, Microsoft might have a little piracy problem of their own. We"ve covered YouHaveDownloaded, a site that keeps track of what IPs and the people behind them have been downloading, and the unflattering revelations it"s uncovered before, but things just got a little more interesting.
YouHaveDownloaded isn"t being updated anymore, since the site"s founders felt that it had accomplished its goal, but that hasn"t stopped the folks over at TorrentFreak from combing the data that"s already been collected and outing more corporate pirates. By doing just that, they"ve discovered what appears to be a ton of Microsoft based IP addresses pirating movies:
Okay, so those are Washington based IPs, but there are plenty of people who happen to be in Washington and also happen to be connected to the internet besides Microsoft, right? Well, yeah, but a quick look at the American Registry for Internet Numbers reveals that Microsoft controls the NetRange 131.107.0.0 – 131.107.255.255, which these addresses fall within. Apparently blocking links to the Pirate Bay in Windows Live Messenger isn"t doing much to curb piracy, even within the heart of Microsoft.
Of course, it isn"t like Microsoft is actually sanctioning piracy by its workers; the company employs thousands upon thousands of people, and it"s hard to expect every one of them to be law abiding citizens, even on the company"s own networks. We"re also pretty confident that any of the corporate pirates who were unfortunate enough to get caught in the act are no longer with the company. Besides, as TorrentFreak points out, they"re not the only ones doing it...
Sources: TorrentFreak | Images via TorrentFreak