International Law

Tomato Garden Windows Piracy Case

By Stan

This case broke late last week, and I’ve been trying ever since to figure out something significant to say about it.

The global software industry was on Friday celebrating what it said was a landmark victory against Chinese piracy after a district court sent four men to prison and handed them hefty fines for distributing counterfeit versions of Microsoft?s Windows XP and other computer programs over the internet.

Huqin District People?s Court in Suzhou sentenced Sun Xiansheng and Hong Lei, the founders and main executives of Tomato Garden, a website that generated advertising revenues by offering pirated software for free, to 3½ years in prison and a fine of Rmb1m ($146,000) each. Others involved got smaller fines and jail sentences.

The industry hailed the verdict as a milestone in the fight against software piracy in China. (FT)

I have to acknowledge that this is very good news.
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Full post as published by China Hearsay on August 24, 2009 (boomark / email).