How does piracy affect Microsofts customers?
Every year, millions of consumers and businesses are hurt by counterfeit software that they have acquired unwittingly, and many companies that license legitimate software have difficulty competing with artificially low prices offered by software pirates. Consumers, businesses, and resellers continually ask Microsoft for help in mitigating the threat posed by pirates. Microsoft works to educate the software ecosystem about piracy, to engineer products that address these concerns, and to enforce anti-piracy policies and laws..