My gut feeling is that Microsoft has turned a blind eye toward piracy by individuals for many years. Almost everyone I know who began doing system administration during the late 90's learned NT4 by pirating it.
In a way it's a smart way to differentiate customers. Since the pirates also add value to the platform you don't want to lose them, but you also want to extract the money you can from those willing to pay. By demonizing pirates while allowing the pirate channel to exist they are able to do both.
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My gut feeling is that Microsoft has turned a blind eye toward piracy by individuals for many years. Almost everyone I know who began doing system administration during the late 90's learned NT4 by pirating it.
In a way it's a smart way to differentiate customers. Since the pirates also add value to the platform you don't want to lose them, but you also want to extract the money you can from those willing to pay. By demonizing pirates while allowing the pirate channel to exist they are able to do both.
Another similar case: Photoshop.
Which actually became easier to pirate in the later versions