Microsoft is cracking down on online auctioneers peddling counterfeit versions of its software, and overnight has filed more than 50 lawsuits against merchants worldwide, including three in Australia.

The criminal and civil lawsuits specifically relate to sellers who use eBay’s online auction service to sell fake versions of Microsoft products, such as its Windows XP operating system and Office productivity suite.

This sort of piracy costs software companies such as Microsoft millions of dollars every year, and Australia has been identified as one of the main offenders.

According to statistics released by the Business Software Association of Australia today, Australia is now the third-highest source of internet piracy infringements in Asia, behind China and Taiwan.

In September this year alone, 1819 infringements were reported in Australia, 4328 in China and 6201 in Taiwan. An association spokeswoman said these figures were derived from “bots that trawl and spot infringements”, as well as from people reporting incidents.

Two of the Australian vendors named by Microsoft are based in NSW. The location of the third vendor is not known.

“We’ve lodged these proceedings in an effort to protect Australian consumers from the risks of counterfeit software,” said Suzanne Caldwell, the anti-piracy manager at Microsoft Australia.

Posted: 11|1|06 at 7:27 am. Filed under: Auction News.