Iran is no worse on this than venezuela (where I'm from), yet, there's no problem buying vfp9 in venezuela. There's a university in venezuela (Universidad Central de Venezuela) where you can buy just about ANY sw package you can imagine; from $50 up to the $3000+ packages, all for the price of the media plus a token "duplicating" fee. In essence, you can get vfp9 for about $10.

Yes, it's possible that someone at MS thinks that because Iran openly wipes its collective a$$ with copyright law, it's a bad idea to sell the product to someone over there, however, there's nothing that stops someone from iran from saying they're from England.

I don't think that piracy is worse in Iran than venezuela just because they don't care about international law. Heck, MS may have ran accross the one Iranian (Saed) that actually wants to buy the thing and they're forcing him to go to the bazaar and invest $2 in the local economy. Now THAT'S great thinking!

Alex


>Alex,
> Iran's refusal to acknowledge international copyright laws is a major reason for this. I know there are alot of other reasons but this is a main one. I have beenover there and it is crazy. Software bazaars on the street with np product more than a few bucks. It is all copied and stolen. I am sure there are some businesses doing things the legal way but the majority of vendors stear clear of countries that condone the theft of software and intellectual property.
>
>There are also several trade embargos still in place from the 70's.
>
>
>http://www.iranexpert.com/2004/linux21september.htm
>
>http://news.com.com/2061-1016-5381551.html?tag=xtra.ml