Microsoft has a good reason to be peeved over piracy in the EU, considering it lost a portion of 13.5B to unlicensed software distribution. Knowing this, don"t act surprised to hear that Microsoft wants a piracy reform in the EU, according to Bloomberg.
Microsoft wants the EU to act more like the US in terms of piracy by bankrupting anyone who is caught pirating software. Essentially, Microsoft wants to scare the pants off you with a high damage amount so that you wouldn"t even think about piracy, not even in your sleep.
In Europe, about 35 percent of software deployed on personal computers was pirated every year since 2007, compared with 20 percent in the U.S., according to a May study by BSA and researcher IDC
The idea is that the damages would be high enough to deter piracy, avoid the costly courtroom battles and basically save Microsoft a bunch of money. Hopefully these fines will prevent you from downloading software and make everyone a lawful citizen yet again.
Sure the case has merit as the piracy in the EU is taking a significant chunk of revenue away from Microsoft; but lets make the law reasonable, okay?