Copier Beware: CD replicator duped by forged Microsoft license agrees to multimillion dollar settlement
In this era of rampant counterfeiting, even legitimate CD and DVD replicators run the risk of facing expensive counterfeiting claims. As the case of French CD duplicator MPO Group illustrates, the only way to ensure that a customer ordering copies of a copyrighted work is legit is to get confirmation directly from the copyright owner
In 2003, MPO Group's Thai subsidiary was approached by a software distributor bearing a license from Microsoft. The Thai factory filled his order for 20,000 copies of Microsoft Exchange and SQL server software. Unbeknownst to MPO Group, the license was forged and the copies counterfeits.
A year later, Microsoft purchased some of the counterfeit CDs and traced them to the Thai MPO Group factory. This put MPO Group in the awkward position of having participated in the counterfeiting of software owned by one of its important business partners, for MPO Group has a disc replication agreement with Microsoft for other software products. The result: the announcement today that MPO Group has agreed to pay a multimillion dollar settlement to Microsoft.
Had MPO Group's factory contacted Microsoft to confirm the distributor's authority to order copies of the server software, it would have learned that Microsoft never licenses third party distributors to have copies of its software made in this fashion. Instead, it accepted the forged license at face value.
According to InfoWorld, MPO joined the International Recording Media Association's Anti-Piracy Compliance Program in 2005 although its plant in Thailand is not yet on the list of IRMA Anti-Piracy Certified Plants.