Wednesday, 23 May 2007

Software Pirate to Pay USD 205,000 Fine for Illegal eBay Sales

A software pirate on the online auction site eBay sold illegal copies of Symantec software. He has agreed to cough up USD 205,000 as fine.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) trade group, had filed a lawsuit on behalf of Symantec said the defendant has said that he will help the proceedings by taking out the parties involved in distributing the illegal software that was sold.

"We give a certain level of confidentiality in order for us to get additional information," Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of intellectual property for the Washington-based SIIA said regarding having kept the identity of the culprit confidential.

An estimated 90 per cent of the software sold on auction sites such as eBay is counterfeit, according to studies, Kupferschmid said.

The defendant has been charged of infringing on Symantec's copyrights and trademarks in areas such as Norton PartitionMagic, Norton AntiVirus, pcAnywhere and Norton SystemWorks.