The real difference between this SP2 scenario and the other ones you posed is cost.

In the brakes or fire department examples there are "large" costs involved.

In the SP2 example, the only new cost to Microsoft is the cost of the bandwidth. While it is an actual cost, its pretty close to zero.

So, Microsoft hasn't really lost any money by providing the patch to users who illegally use the software, since they were unlikely to purchase it in the first place.

This does remind us of the usual bad logic used by software and media companies about losses due to piracy. In actuality the losses are much smaller than advertised because the pirates would never have purchased the product in the first place.




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