Microsoft tries to protect nonprofits

Microsoft has widened its efforts to prevent national governments from using antipiracy laws to suppress dissenters. According to the New York Times, the company is issuing free software licenses to half a million "advocacy groups, independent media outlets and other nonprofit organizations in 12 countries with tightly controlled governments, including Russia and China."

On the face of it, this makes eminently good sense for Microsoft. The company has spent many years and who knows how much money pushing for more stringent antipiracy laws in Russia, China, and elsewhere. It therefore had to have been a PR nightmare last month to have the Times reporting that those laws were being used by the Russian government against its political enemies, especially since it seemed the real problem was that even if Microsoft's U.S.-based company leadership was embarrassed by the company's role in these transparent abuses of power, its Russia-based actors -- local lawyers and company staff -- either didn't share or weren't allowed to share the home office's sentiments.

The company's latest moves not only represent a reversal of its hands-off attitude toward politically motivated antipiracy investigations in some countries, but also signal that the company is trying to prevent its local lawyers from being used by those governments in those investigations.

The security services in Russia have confiscated computers from dozens of advocacy organizations in recent years under the guise of antipiracy inquiries. Some of these groups did have illegal software, and the authorities have said they are carrying out legitimate efforts to curtail software piracy. But they almost never investigate organizations allied with the government.

Microsoft had long rejected requests from human-rights groups that it refrain from taking part in such cases, saying it was merely complying with Russian law.

But now, the organizations would be automatically granted the software licenses without even having to apply for them, meaning that any programs that they possessed would effectively be legalized. That essentially bars the company’s lawyers from assisting the police in piracy inquiries against the groups.

No doubt Putin's authoritarian instincts will lead him to a way around Microsoft's latest maneuvers, but the company at least has gotten a respite in Russia. It's not clear what difference, if any, Microsoft's actions will make in other countries.

How Microsoft determines what organizations should receive the free licenses will be tricky, too, I suspect. It can't be seen as having a political agenda of its own or it will be dragged into local politics. It also can't make the giveaways too easy or its profits might suffer. All in all, it may find it has traded in one set of troubles for another.