eBay software pirates settle for $100,000
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has settled with two defendants in Symantec Corporation v. Kevin Liu, one of the first lawsuits filed under SIIA's Auction Litigation Program. Under the settlement, Kevin Liu and G.T. Tian paid $100,000 in damages, agreed to stop selling counterfeit software and provided SIIA with records identifying their customers and suppliers.
The suit, which was filed in the Central District of California, alleged that Liu and Tian sold pirated Norton pcAnywhere, Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier, and Norton Ghost software on eBay, completing more than 8,000 auctions on eBay over the past two years under dozens of different eBay identities. According to the SIAA, the defendants sold software with a retail value of more than $750,000 for approximately $123,000.
An SIAA press release quotes Liu saying, "If I had known that SIIA was checking eBay for software piracy, and if I had known the software was pirated and that I'd have to pay such a high fine, I would have never sold the pirated software to begin with."
The SIAA launched its Auction Litigation Program to deter sales of pirated software through auction sites "because current strategies, such as taking down auctions through eBay's Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program, have not adequately remedied the problem." It filed three suits in mid-May and two this month.