Software pirate jailed and $200k cash seized

by Chris Dawson

This post was written in July 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

SIIA, The Software & Information Industry Association has notched up another victory in the fight against counterfeiting with a successful prosecution of a software pirate (link opens in PDF).

The sentence handed down is 4 years jail, 3 years parole for community services and seizure of computers and $220k in cash.

SIIA have now filed 32 lawsuits in 2008 including 6 new cases filed today on behalf of Adobe. SIIA said “We’ve been much more aggressive in filing lawsuits this year and intend to send a clear message that auctioning counterfeit and unauthorized software will lead to serious penalties” that the “case demonstrates that these pirates won’t simply get a slap on the wrist when caught – they very well may end up doing serious time in federal prison”.

If you see a listing on eBay that you suspect is counterfeit software you can report it to SIIA on their website.

In related news another case has been settled in the US upholding the right to resell legitimate software on eBay. The court ruled that a software license’s “ban on transferring the software is of no consequence under the Copyright Act” and purchasers are free to dispose of software they no longer require.

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Author: Chris Dawson
Posted at: Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Filed Under News
 

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Comments

One Response to “Software pirate jailed and $200k cash seized”

  1. Sue Bailey on July 26th, 2008 12:34 pm

    Wired has an interview with the guy… extremely interesting, if rather naive in his assumption that he wouldn’t get arrested.

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