Microsoft on Monday said it would fundamentally alter the way it provides software licenses to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) after a newspaper article accused Russian authorities of raiding the offices of anti-government organizations under the auspices of Microsoft piracy crackdowns.

Microsoft pledged to create a new, unilateral software license for NGOs that will ensure they all have free, legal copies of the company's products.

"We must accept responsibility and assume accountability for our anti-piracy work, including the good and the bad," Brad Smith, senior vice president and Microsoft general counsel, wrote in a blog post.

Smith's post came after The New York Times published an article on Sunday that said Russian authorities were raiding the offices of organizations participating in anti-government activity. Baikal Environmental Wave, for example, was organizing protests against government plans to re-open a paper factory that had polluted a nearby lake. Police officers recently stormed the group's office and seized their computers, but said they were there to search for pirated Microsoft software.

The Times said Microsoft backed the police activity in an effort to crack down on piracy.

"Whatever the circumstances of the particular cases The New York Times described, we want to be clear that we unequivocally abhor any attempt to leverage intellectual property rights to stifle political advocacy or pursue improper personal gain," Smith wrote Monday. "We are moving swiftly to seek to remove any incentive or ability to engage in such behavior."

Microsoft was already examining this issue with the help of human rights advocates, Smith said, but is now accelerating those efforts in light of the Times article. Microsoft plans to retain an international law firm that has not been involved in the company's anti-piracy work to conduct an investigation and advise Microsoft on the steps it should take, according to Smith.

That investigation will take some time, however, so effectively immediately, Microsoft will create this new unilateral software license for NGOs, he said.

For years, Microsoft has donated software to NGOs, which they can use free of charge. Each NGO is entitled to six Microsoft software titles for use on up to 50 PCs, and they can obtain 300 new licenses every other year. Many NGOs, however, are unaware of the program or that donated software can be ordered through a Microsoft re-seller, Smith wrote.

"We'll make this new, non-transferable license applicable to NGOs in a number of countries, including in Russia," Smith said. "We will also make it available to appropriate journalists' organizations in order to include small newspapers and independent media. Because it's automatic, they won't need to take any steps to benefit from its terms."

These NGO licenses will be valid until 2012, by which time Microsoft hopes that participants will be made aware of its standard program and move over to that.

"Now our information will fully exonerate any qualifying NGO, by showing that it has a valid license to our software," Smith said.

To help NGOs through a potential legal minefield, Microsoft also said it will create a new NGO Legal Assistance Program, which will help NGOs present their case to authorities. Microsoft also said it will make its new policies available to the relevant Russian authorities, and make Microsoft contact information available to NGOs.

The company also pledged to crack down on people pretending to be Microsoft officials in order to extort money from those running illegal software. This includes a Web-based list of Microsoft's authorized counsel, which people can check against those claiming to be Microsoft staff.

"We aim to reduce the piracy and counterfeiting of software … [b]ut none of this should create a pretext for the inappropriate pursuit of NGOs, newspapers, or other participants in civil society," Smith concluded. "And we certainly don't want to contribute to any such effort, even inadvertently."