Intellectual Property Law

Sony BMG Sued For Using Pirated SoftwareSilicon Alley Insider

You read that headline right -- Sony BMG, ardent foe of music piracy, is in trouble for using pirated software.

The company is being sued by PointDev, a French software company that makes Windows administration tools, after an IT worker at Sony BMG called and supplied the company with a pirated license number for one of its products.

A subsequent raid of Sony BMG offices in France turned up pirated PointDev software on four servers, and quite a bit more suspect software. The Business Software Alliance thinks that up to 47% of the software installed on French business computers could be pirated. For its part, PointDev is claiming $475,000 in damages. Sony BMG declined to comment.

The CEO of tiny PointDev (six employees), Agustoni Paul-Henry, doesn't think it was an oversight, or the work of one person. "I think piracy is linked to the policy of a company," he said. But who cares if it is? We can almost hear everybody who's been sued by Sony BMG for dowloading music laughing.

Full post as published by IP Law Daily on April 01, 2008 (boomark / email).