Property is Theft

Remember a while ago when everyone freaked out over Google's decision to play along with China's censorship regime? What will be the response to MicroSoft's playing nice with Russia's attempt to stifle dissent? The shorter version is that MicroSoft is collaborating with Russia's authoritarian state to stifle dissent but is doing so in the interest of defending against piracy. MicroSoft claims that they have no interest in stifling dissent.

However

In southwestern Russia, the Interior Ministry declared in an official document that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was begun “based on an application” from a lawyer for Microsoft.

In another city, Samara, the police seized computers from two opposition newspapers, with the support of a different Microsoft lawyer. “Without the participation of Microsoft, these criminal cases against human rights defenders and journalists would simply not be able to occur,” said the editor of the newspapers, Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev.

And although

[n]either Microsoft’s Moscow office nor its local lawyer contacted Baikal Wave to hear its side. [Microsoft's] lawyer did provide testimony to the police about the value of the software that Baikal Wave was accused of illegally obtaining.

 Furthermore

Baikal Wave sent copies of its software receipts and other documentation to Microsoft’s Moscow office to show that it had purchased the software legally. The group said it believed that the authorities would be under pressure to drop the case if Microsoft would confirm the documents’ authenticity.
Microsoft declined to do so. In a letter to Baikal Wave, the company said it would forward the materials only to the authorities in Irkutsk, which already had copies of them.

 Interestingly

Microsoft has hired numerous private lawyers across Russia who represent the company in piracy cases. Several of the lawyers have cropped up in these politically sensitive inquiries.

 Even more interestingly

This year, prosecutors in the southwestern city of Krasnodar brought a piracy case against an immigrant rights activist named Anastasia Denisova. She said in an interview that she was surprised at the aggressive posture of Microsoft’s local lawyer.
In an official document, the Interior Ministry said the case against Ms. Denisova was begun “based on an application” from the lawyer. (Microsoft’s Moscow office said that statement was not correct.)
Ms. Denisova said the lawyer overestimated the value of the allegedly pirated software. As a result, the accusations were more serious.
“The Microsoft lawyer was very active, coming to the court all the time, even though he was not summoned,” she said. “He also claimed that he was going to sue me, despite the fact that Microsoft had publicly stated that it would not do so against an advocacy group.”
In May, after Ms. Denisova had spent several months under the threat of a prison sentence, the charges were dropped. Prosecutors acknowledged that the investigation had been mishandled

Is it okay to participate in the stifling of dissent when it is in service of intellectual  property rights?