You gotta love Microsoft. They can’t even accept some free publicity for the ill-fated, often delayed, OS X ripped-off, operating system of theirs. Nope, Microsoft sent the bullies after Chris Pirillo and sent him a cease and desist letter. In part, it read:

The information in this notice is accurate, and I hereby certify under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of Microsoft, the owner of the copyright(s) in the work(s) identified above. I have a good faith belief that none of the materials or activities listed above have been authorized by Microsoft, its agents, or the law.

We hereby give notice of these activities to you and request that you take expeditious action to remove or disable access to the material described above, and thereby prevent the illegal reproduction and distribution of this software via your company’s network.

The e-mail was signed by Peter Anaman with a title of Internet Investigator. Man, and I thought webmaster was a cool title. This one almost makes Peter sound like he works with TJ Hooker.

Anyway, it’s pretty funny that Microsoft would kill the only real way to get this beta to everyone since it is 3.2 GB in size. This is what BitTorrent was designed for, but hey, even if Microsoft says it’s hip on the Internet, actions like this shows it’s not. Using the lame excuse that no one would know for sure if this was the real deal or pirated software, it drove Redmond to request the removal. Even though Chris had a check sum up for anyone to verify the download with.

Whatever. Keep the faith, Microsoft. Maybe a few more people will buy Vista instead of a new Mac that does Vista stuff today…and will run Vista when it comes out, too. Why Microsoft is reminding me of the RIAA and its embracing of MP3s, I don’t know.

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