Six and a half years for MS pirates
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The leaders of a large Microsoft piracy network are sitting in jail.
A group of pirates specialising in knock-off Microsoft products has been handed a jail term of six and a half years following manufacturing and selling counterfeit copies of popular Windows products.
The group reportedly had sales of more than $2 billion on knock-offs of Windows’ Server, Vista and XP systems. The piracy software ring’s reach spanned 36 countries, and sold knock-offs of 19 of Microsoft’s software products.
The jail sentence is the stiffest on violation of intellectual property rights yet, and was handled by a court in Shenzhen, China.
Although software piracy was the group’s main practice, fake clothing, electronics and fashion items were also sold in China and across the globe.
Microsoft hailed the conviction as milestone in law enforcement between China and the US, with 11 people being handed jail sentences of up to six and a half years.
The syndicate ran the piracy racket from Guangdon, one of China’s southern provinces, and pirated Microsoft products in at least 11 languages. According to Microsoft, the group is one of the largest software piracy groups in the world.
In a statement by top Microsoft anti-piracy official, David Finn, he remarked: “Microsoft greatly appreciates the work of China’s PSB and the FBI in taking strong enforcement action against this global software counterfeiting syndicate.”
