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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