copyright licensing
Are Windows activation tools illegal?
<p>There are several of such tools that activate Windows without buying a license. Such tools works by emulating a KMS (key management service) server that is used to activate Windows in enterprise envroinments. Are these tools illegal?</p>

<p>If the tool circumvents Windows' copy protection (which is a computer question, not a legal one, but I cannot imagine a circumstance in which this isn't access-circumvention), then it is a violation of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201" rel="noreferrer">17 USC 1201</a>, which forbids &quot;circumvent[ing] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title&quot;. It is both illegal to use, and to &quot;manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic&quot; in such a program.</p>

<p><a href="/questions/tagged/united-kingdom" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;united-kingdom&#39;" aria-label="show questions tagged &#39;united-kingdom&#39;" rel="tag" aria-labelledby="united-kingdom-container">united-kingdom</a></p>
<p>The Computer Misuse Act 1990 prohibits this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>1 Unauthorised access to computer material.</strong></p>
<p>(1) A person is guilty of an offence if—<br />
(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer, or to enable any such access to be secured;<br />
(b) the access he intends to secure, or to enable to be secured, is unauthorised; and<br />
(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that that is the case.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Section 3A of the Act, which was introduced in 2006, makes it an offence to make, adapt, supply or offer to supply any article intending it to be used, or believing it will be used, to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1.</p>
<p>Section 4 provides that there has only to be &quot;one significant link&quot; with a UK jurisdiction for the offences to be committed. So it may be that the person is in the UK but the program or the supplied article is not; or the person is outside the UK but the offence happens in the UK.</p>
