Why do law enforcement agencies waste police time and enormous amounts of taxpayer money on operations like this one?

Some degree of IP protection is necessary to ensure innovation – but given that enforcing IP regulations on already created property is of benefit to leading software firms and leading software firms alone [1], it ought to be their financial responsibility to track down infringers.

At least we can all sleep safe at night knowing that while we might get burgled, mugged and/or murdered, at least Bill Gates won’t lost that precious fiftieth billion dollars he was counting on…

[1] Indeed, it leaves everyone else worse off. The most economically efficient way of dealing with a zero-marginal-cost good is to make it freely available.