Design flaw in Microsoft Office 2004 - Anyone can get it for free!

Question

Hello all.
This is going to sound a bit strange, but I've been in the pub today giving my new MacBook owning friend a lesson in the joys of Mac goodness. One of the best things was discovering that I could use Bluetooth to beam across some of my favourite freeware application from my PowerBook to his MacBook. All small stuff, usually in the 5 - 10 megabyte range. I sent him a solitaire game, some media viewers, all the usual non-Apple things that make a Mac even more useful to run. I know, nothing strange so far, but bear with me.
My friend volunteered the question of whether Bluetooth would time out during the transfer of large files. An experiment was needed. I was also curious to find out if larger applications would beam across and still work. After all, if a 5 megabyte freeware app works when copied from my applications folder to his, would a larger piece of commercialware work as well? I mean, it shouldn't right? As a recent Mac switcher myself (5 happy months) I thought it would be appropriate to try a Microsoft application. I bought my PowerBook second-hand and I inherited a copy of MS Office that I've never used (and never will).
So here is the curious thing. I used Stuffit to compress the entire Microsoft Office 2004 folder. Minus Entourage, which I had already deleted as being surplus to requirements, the SIT file weighed in at a whopping 250 megabytes. I was very impressed to find out that it transferred across in a little over half an hour. No timeout limitation for large file transfers, Macs rock. I was however, extremely disturbed to discover the that unzipped file played perfectly well on my friend's computer. To clarify, by just copying across the entire Microsoft Office 2004 folder he was now in possession of a free, activated, and 100% working copy of the program. Surely this can't be right? I know that piracy is a major issue, and for Microsoft to just allow people to copy across the entire application means that a single copy released on a fileshareing network would be usable by an unlimited number of people potentially.
I would like to stress that I absolutely do NOT endorse piracy in any way. This was just a drunken experiment to see what would happen, and I'm reporting it here so that Microsoft and Apple can close this loophole and make sure that future versions of the application can be protected. This application retails at £350 and a simple copy and paste of the entire folder means it is available free for the pirates out there. It is not fair that some people should get for free what others have to pay a premium rate for.
My friend has deleted the copied program from his computer as neither of us wish to indulge in illegal activity. This was just an accidental discovery made during a casual "what if?" experiment. We did a search on Google (we are still in the pub as I write) and I can't find any mention of this having been found before. I hope the forum admins can bring this to the attention of someone higher up as I'm sure that it will be of great interest. It is bad enough that some people crack open applications for use by the less scrupulous out there, but this application is able to be freely copied by all and sundry. It might as well have a big "steal me" sign posted on the boxes.
Um, I'm guessing that as it is a Microsoft application that it is their mistake right? Just another reason why I am no longer running a Windows computer if this is an example of their attention to detail. It is breathtaking that some people are paying a huge amount of money for a program that can just be copied and pasted between computers.

Answer 1

That is the way Microsoft Office 2004 works. It's a drag and drop install of the folder itself. (Although, it's usually done from the install CD, not someone else's computer.) Any missing support files (not entire applications like Entourage, though) will re-install themselves the first time an Office application is launched. This is how Microsoft designed it, so it would be simple to install and self-repairing. The registration information is saved, somewhere, inside that folder.
If you wanted to alert someone, you should probably tell someone at Microsoft.
-Doug