Microsoft awarded damages in piracy case

Delhi High Court has awarded damages for Rs 19.75 lakh to Microsoft in a
civil copyright infringement case. The Delhi High Court passed judgment against
the defendants Yogesh Popat and Dyptronics Pvt Ltd of Mumbai, for indulging in
hard disk drive loading of pirated or unlicensed software onto computers
assembled and sold to customers. The evidence presented before the court
included pirated versions of Windows 98, Office 2000 and Visual Studio 6.0
illegally distributed by the defendants without any authorization.

A recent BSA-IDC study points out the impact of reduction in piracy in India.
It states that a reduction from the 70 percent level in 2002 to 60 percent by
2006 would add $ two billion to India's economy, increase local industry
revenues by around $1.6 billion, generate 48,435 new high-tech, high-wage jobs
and generate $92.4 million in tax revenues for the government.

Hard Disk loading of pirated software is turning out to be a menace to the
genuine software distri-bution market in India. The copies of the software
loaded on the computer are illegal copies, amounting to infringement of the
copy-rights in the software. In hard disk loading, unlike genuine software, no
ins-tallation support CDs, manuals, Certificate of Authenticity or License
Agreements is provided.

Commenting on the judgment, Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM said, "This
decision should lead to more deterrence to the software piracy business as it is
becoming clear that awarding damages against the infringers of intellectual
property rights is a positive step in creating an IPR friendly environment in
India. We are working effectively on an ongoing basis to train the police and
the judiciary in enforcing IPR laws, also conducting numerous anti-piracy raids
and other campaigns across the country."

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