He took a really dumb risk and customs found it. It sucks, but it was a dumb choice to have them made in China and shipped over. If he had done it in the US, he probably would never have been caught.

I read elsewhere that the Microsoft and Dell logo were still on them, so they were "counterfeit" no matter what the value because he copied the logos.

It may not be "justice" but I understand the case... His story is not squeaky clean as depicted in this article. He was trying to profit from it, and did on previous shipments.

"In 2011, the electronics recycling guru obtained a Dell-authorized Windows recovery disc from a business colleague, Robert Wolff, for $5. Lundgren thought that he could simply have these CDs re-printed in China en masse—to the tune of spending $80,000 on those discs. Back then, the idea was that he would resell these Chinese-made discs to Dell refurbishers for cheap—saving them the trouble of making their own for their own customers. (If, for some reason, a Windows user with a refurbished computer can’t locate a recovery disc or a license and product key, Microsoft will sell them a new one.)"

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/w … l-go-to-prison/

Very sneaky. Not rending my garments over this fool.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/201 … u-s-government/

I watched something on youtube about this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaoJErxYLtM

Lundgren left a comment on, basically he admits something along the lines of he was wrong printing the logo. However that's copyright not piracy which is what he's jailed for in part. However if this brings the right to repair issue to the media then its not in vain.

I have to agree.
Microsoft cant have it both ways. especially as these would be OEM disks.
As per their own rules, OEM means the licence is issued to the PC, not the user. If that PC is still being used and the licence sticker is still attached. its entitled to an installation of that version of windows.
If the installation files are from recovery partition, OEM CD, downloaded off the internet is beside the point.
And they were not providing keys with the CD, which makes the CD useless to most as only Dell keys work with Dell CD's

If they were reproducing Retail or volume licence CD's then that's a different story. but they weren't.

That's what makes me really question the valuation of damages in this. He wasn't sued or charged over fraudulent licenses. Those disks were only worth the cost to press and ship. There was no inherent profit for Microsoft that was impacted.