SIIA Continues to Wage War Against Auction Piracy by Filing Eight New Lawsuits Against eBay Sellers
Published March 20th, 2008
Press Release
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) announced today that it is continuing its aggressive battle against software auction piracy by filing eight new lawsuits against sellers of pirated software on eBay. The new round is the second largest number of suits brought at one time by SIIA, following the nine lawsuits filed in February.
Each of the suits was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, on behalf of member Adobe Systems Incorporated. While SIIA has been at the forefront of fighting auction piracy for more than two years, the latest suits are part of an aggressive new campaign – raising the total number of lawsuits filed against eBay sellers this year to 17.
Today’s lawsuits charged Todd Bennett of Phoenix, AZ; Marvin Brown of San Antonio, TX; Stephen Cavener and the Henry A. Lineberger Group LLC of Philadelphia, PA; Andrew Channin of Lawrenceville, NJ; Alex Jackson of Westlake Village, CA; Denis Norton of Plymouth, CT; Kamal Salibi of Doral, FL; and Simon Yeo of Los Angeles, CA with knowingly selling illegal copies of Adobe(R) PhotoShop(R) CS3 and other software products on eBay.
“Unsuspecting consumers and legitimate software sellers pay a steep price when software pirates are allowed to operate freely on auction sites,” said Scott Bain, Litigation Counsel of SIIA. “SIIA will continue to combat auction site piracy by monitoring and suing sellers of illegal software without warning – regardless of where or how the seller acquired the illegal copies. These sellers are finding out that the penalties far outweigh the quick profits they hoped to gain by selling illegal software.”
“Software piracy is an ongoing concern for software companies like Adobe, whose businesses are based on intellectual property and copyright protection,” said Suresh Balasubramanian, Adobe’s director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy. “Pirated software also poses a considerable risk to end-users, often exposing them to viruses and malware. We are encouraged by the results of SIIA’s Auction Litigation Program and will continue to support efforts to increase education about this important issue.”
Bain continued, “Seventeen lawsuits in two months represent our most aggressive campaign yet to protect consumers, legal sellers and software makers. We have a long way to go to fix the problem, but with each new effort, we see an impact on illegal software sales.”
As part of its Auction Litigation Program for the software industry, SIIA monitors popular online auction sites, identifies individuals or groups selling pirated software and sues those pirates on behalf of the association’s member companies. The program has led to successful prosecutions of eBay pirates and OEM software sellers, such as the defendants in the Symantec, et al. v. Chan et al. case, who were reselling OEM, unbundled, counterfeit and other copies of software not authorized for resale. Damages paid by defendants have run as high as several hundred thousand dollars.
Last month, SIIA filed nine other lawsuits against individuals selling pirated software on auction sites. See www.siia.net/press/releases/ALP-Nine_Suits_Filed_2-08.pdf for information on those cases.
The SIIA Auction Litigation Program is part of a continuing program to work with buyers and sellers on auction sites to get the word out that pirated software is bad for both ends of the sale. Sellers can be prosecuted and buyers can be stuck with viruses, no technical support and no recourse. In addition to the auction piracy suits, SIIA has also sought to protect legitimate sellers and unsuspecting buyers by publishing software buying guides (http://www.siia.net/piracy/education.asp) and implementing a certification program for software sellers (Certified Software Resellers http://www.siia.net/piracy/resellers.asp) to help steer consumers of auctioned software to sellers who have promised to sell only legal software.
About SIIA
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit http://www.siia.net
