Shenzhen, China, January 2: Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, together have busted the biggest ever software counterfeiting ring. Fortifying their efforts, the Shenzhen court in southern China sentenced 11 culprits involved in the ring, to 18 months to six and a half years in prison Wednesday. The convicts are found guilty of violating the national copyright laws and manufacturing and distributing counterfeited Microsoft software worldwide.
The FBI claims to have seized hundreds of millions of dollars worth of material.
The China based group had been fooling all; from customers to customs, while carrying global sales of the fake pirated software worth more than $2 billion.
The ring had been running its operations most delicately to counterfeit software so closely that they almost looked real. Quite surprisingly, the fake software also contained exact holograms and even Microsoft’s ‘Certificate of authenticity’, as on original products.
David Finn, Microsoft’s associate general counsel for worldwide piracy and counterfeiting issues, said, “The size and scope of the operation is unlike anything we’ve seen before. We found their products in 36 countries.”
The counterfeited versions of Windows XP and Office 2007 were sold aggressively over the internet, mostly to United States and Europe as they commanded whopping prices there. They did not sell in their home country as in China Microsoft software sells for as less as $3.
The FBI together with Chinese officials had seized $500 million worth of counterfeit software and arrested 25 people when they initially broke the ring in July 2007.
Finn described the group as “absolutely unprecedented”, being amazed by the volume and sophistication of its operations.
Prior to this, in a separate trial, a group of nine people had been accused of counterfeiting Microsoft and Symantec software and distributing it worldwide. No verdict has been reached so far.
With these two cases, China is perceived as the biggest hub of high-quality software piracy. However, China asserts that it had been quite successful in its fight against piracy, and the prosecution of one of the biggest software counterfeiting rings proves its conviction.
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