Next time a Microsoft spokesdroid complains about software piracy, laugh in their face…

Microsoft to hide Irish Tax Haven data of subsidiaries that have saved it billions of dollars in US taxes

US software giant Microsoft has taken steps to shield from the public, the value of Tax Haven transactions of two Irish-registered subsidiaries that have enabled it to save billions of dollars in US taxes.

The company applied to the Irish Companies Office on Monday to re-register its Round Island One and Flat Island Company subsidiaries as companies with unlimited liability. Unlimited companies have no obligation to file their accounts publicly. 

The U.S. taxes that multi-billionaire Bill Gates is using Ireland to avoid are paid for in the end by the rest of us.  Which might seem like a good excuse to pirate his software but it isn’t.  Because Bill is corrupt is no reason to corrupt yourself.  And there is one very good reason to not pirate Microsoft products in any case.  They suck.  Or more specifically…

Zune chokes on leap-year bug
The bug disabled the players on Dec. 31, the last day of a leap year

Microsoft’s Zune 30GB music player just wasn’t ready for a leap year.  That’s what owners of the devices discovered Wednesday morning when they awoke to find their players frozen and unworkable.

The problem turned out to be "a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year," Microsoft Zune spokesman Matt Akers said in a posting to Zune forums Wednesday. The issue does not affect all Zune players, but all models of the Zune 30GB are potentially affected, he said.

Zune is Microsoft’s alternative to Apple’s popular iPod devices.

And you can tell it’s Microsoft’s alternative because it took just one tiny little leap second to bring it down to a crashing locked up total halt.  Why pirate Microsoft Windows when you can run a Linux distribution for free and have a more reliable, more secure operating system in the bargain.  Yes, Linux is more work.  But it’s work defeating Microsoft’s anti-piracy schemes too.  Why go to the trouble?  Just run Linux.  If you are smart and skillful enough to defeat Microsoft’s anti-piracy systems you can figure out and run Linux.  And then you don’t have to be a thief.