http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO47928,00.html
Microsoft in hot pursuit of software pirates
By ANNA SCOTT, IDG NEWS SERVICE
(August 02, 2000) In the past eight weeks, Microsoft Corp. has
ordered 7,500 Web sites and Internet auctions to stop selling
counterfeit Microsoft software. Another 600 notices were sent out
Tuesday. The software giant's secret weapon in combating piracy: an
Internet monitoring tool that, according to the vendor, sniffs out
Net fraud 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
"[Microsoft has seen an] increasing volume of complaints related to
fraudulent materials and both the distributing and posting of illegal
downloads," said Tim Cranton, a corporate attorney with Microsoft's
antipiracy group. "Customers are getting ripped off, paying good
money for bad products."
Microsoft is leasing the tool, an intelligent Web crawler, from the
software's developer, a third-party vendor that Cranton didn't
identify. Microsoft has been using the tool to detect counterfeit
versions of its Windows 2000 operating system since November of last
year, he added.
Since February of this year, the tool has been programmed to search
for all counterfeit versions of Microsoft products, resulting in the
discoveries that spurred Tuesday's announcement of both the software
vendor's campaign to fight fraud on the Net and its subsequent filing
of several lawsuits in the U.S.
The tool is capable of detecting the illegal distribution of all
copyrighted material, including books, movies and music, and is able
to do so in different languages, Microsoft said. The automated online
scanning tool simulates a search that someone looking for fraudulent
material would run. The software is capable of searching the content
of every Web site and each site's links.
"It is a solution for all content creators because it can protect all
sorts of content online. . . . [Microsoft's] goal is to create an
honest marketplace where [customers] can get trusted Microsoft
content online," Cranton said.
So far, Microsoft's campaign has generated 64 criminal raids and
resulted in 17 civil lawsuits being filed in 15 countries. In the
U.S., where more than 3,000 Internet auction postings were taken down
in July, Microsoft recently announced five lawsuits and two
settlements. One of the lawsuits is against New York-based Copy USA.
To date, Microsoft has shut down 600 postings on the company's
auction site. The settlements are related to college students who had
been selling illegal copies of Microsoft's software through auction
sites out of Sacramento, Calif., and Chicago.
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) in Washington, a nonprofit trade
group of which Microsoft is a key member, said it supports the
software giant's actions. However, the BSA is not using its power of
attorney to take legal action against fraudulent parties.
"This is Microsoft's own action," said Karine Elsen, the BSA's
director of marketing.
Many of the raids have been led or supported by the BSA, whose
involvement is instrumental to Microsoft's success, Cranton said. The
industry body has been criticized in the past for having an overly
close relationship with Microsoft.
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