Hi guys! So…yeah, I have a W10 IoT LTSC permanently activated via massgrave getting this warning. Any idea what’s up? Shouldn’t it continue chugging along for a good few years more?
EDIT: This is a VM, as I run mainly Linux on everything if I can avoid it. I’m just feating there might be more like this.
We’re talking about Windows ltsc aren’t we? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/download-windows-11-iot-enterprise-ltsc-eval the ISO is freely available on Microsofts website.
It’s freely available for evaluation purposes (from that link - it’s freely available for other purposes from other links, too, and so are other editions of Windows), but that doesn’t mean you’re legally allowed to use those public links however you want. If the copyright holder says they’re for evaluation purposes only, then if you know you aren’t intending to pay even if you like it, then you’re not evaluating whether or not the download link is public, so it still counts as piracy. It’s still stealing to take produce from a roadside stall with an honesty box if you don’t pay even though the produce was just sitting out in the open.
Okay, so it’s not illegal to obtain the ISO as you said before, and you’re not breaking DRM, your breaking TOS. Yes, this is generally regarded as piracy and illegal, but downloading the ISO is not. Your analogy only works if the fruit stand has infinite fruit being cloned over and over again from the same original fruit automatically and costs the fruit stand practically nothing when you don’t pay.
Copyright law is written as if magically duplicating the fruit is the same thing as stealing it. In a discussion about what the law is rather than what it should be in a sensible society, the analogy is fine. As Microsoft is the copyright holder, you only have the right to do anything with their files that they have deigned to grant you, and anything else is legally piracy. In the case of this specific link, they’ve granted the public the right to use it for evaluation purposes, but they’ve not granted any other rights, so it is legal to use the link to download the file for evaluation purposes, and illegal to use it for anything else.
If you want a slightly different analogy, it’s a little like how if Disney put on a free screening of the latest Marvel film for disabled children at a cinema, and didn’t check at the door, an able bodied adult could wander in, past signs saying that the screening was for disabled children only, and watch the film for free, but the fact that they could physically gain access doesn’t mean they had any legal right to be there. They could be ejected from the cinema and/or sued for the cost of a ticket and any legal costs. You do not have a legal right to click link on Microsoft’s website next to some text saying that it’s for evaluation purposes only unless you’re clicking it for evaluation purposes only. Just because you’ve made it to the link, it doesn’t mean you can ignore the text saying who is and isn’t allowed to click it.
Okay, still a bad analogy as the fruit stand clearly states you free to take this fruit without payment and evaluate it, but if you want to eat more than a bite you have to pay us or throw it away.
Clearly you have a pedantic streak, but you’d be very hard pressed legally to find anyone saying you’ve broke the law by downloading an iso that is freely available online nor would any DMCA requests or the like be filled. Furthermore, casual downloaders who do not distribute or attempt to profit off of pirating windows are rarely if ever prosecuted.
Also, like what are you doing? Are you just trying to be right or is there some underlining principal I’m missing? Is it just piracy=illegal=bad?