Yes. The Eula and the law prohibits this

I think this may be over the top (the law). In my field it's the license key customers pay for - once registered the actual install media can be downloaded/receated whenever you like because it's useless without the license anyway.

Just because I pointed out that your analogy was wrong I became a pirate? I never said it was ok to send him the file, because I am no lawyer and I don't know if it is piracy or not. But I still think you are analogy is wrong.

I never said you are a pirate. I said that the argument that it doesn't cost the developer is used by pirates.

I think this may be over the top (the law). In my field it's the license key customers pay for - once registered the actual install media can be downloaded/receated whenever you like because it's useless without the license anyway.

What the EULA permits in your field is irrelevant. What matters is what the EULA and law permits in Microsoft's case.

I'd not fire the file over the internet to someone I could not be sure actually had paid for it at some point, but if I lived next door to the guy and saw he genuinely possessed an original disk and saw it was not loading the file, I confess I would lend him mine to circumvent the problem (which incidentally I have bought twice); that might be against the law, but it isn't against simple common sense, since what he'd evidently have paid for, is a license to use the software. Thus I'd go with Charles Dickens and his character Mr Bumble on this one: 'If the law supposes that... the law is a &@($*, a idiot. And the worst I wish the law, is that his eye may be opened by experience... by experience." Al

What the EULA permits in your field is irrelevant. What matters is what the EULA and law permits in Microsoft's case.

Obviously, my point is laws can be and should be changed when similar circumstances show how pointless they are.