Six Admit to Committing Theft of $100m in Software Piracy Incident

Six people in United States admitted having committed software piracy of over $100m when they stole Windows XP, believably a massive piracy plot that the country's government ever-prosecuted.

United States Attorney Tammy Dickinson handling cases for Missouri in the western district stated that in the particular instance, the counterfeit alternatively forcefully-grabbed software products comprised access codes counting 170,000 with which to illegally reach Microsoft products (Windows XP and 7) and Adobe Systems. The key-codes for the stolen products help for acquiring admission into different copyrighted software.

The federation officials further confiscated over $20m worth of assets, including documents for 27 real estate properties of $10m and papers related to investment/bank accounts valuing $10m. Officials compute the defendants earned revenue of $30m after they sold the counterfeit software. Indiatimes.com reported this, December 18, 2015.

Dickinson rates software piracy as one considerable economic crime, which turns into victim not just manufacturers/developers of software, however, innocent customers.

The probe still going on started during 2013 the time officials learnt that Kansas City-based Casey Lee Ross had been purchasing and re-selling 30k key-codes for software programs along with more items which let admission into copyrighted software. According to the prosecutor's representatives, Ross paid much less for the fake key-codes compared to the market rate when buying from people within Europe, Singapore and China followed with reselling them to 4 more defendants of the group who further resold the keys over the Internet.

Ross faced charges that he obtained copied, illicit, stolen, unauthorized and earlier utilized program key-codes via various tactics. Prosecutors indicated that a few software programs involved in the theft had specific mention that they were for promotional purposes rather than meant for selling again, alternatively carried academic licenses.

Vice-President of Microsoft Tom Burt who's also deputy general counsel stated that regular customers were the ultimate victims in such scams because they unwittingly bought software online believing it was genuine, however, got to eventually buy unlicensed software from fraudsters.

According to him, sometimes end-users become vulnerable to viruses/malware/spyware with which cyber-criminals seize their confidential data and identity while leave their PCs wholly unusable.

» SPAMfighter News - 12/24/2015