Ten and PB, Say it ain't so
Thursday May 4, 5:47 pm Eastern Time
Intel workers indicted for alleged software piracy
CHICAGO, May 4 (Reuters) - Prosecutors on Thursday announced the indictment of a global ring of suspected software thieves and five workers at chip maker Intel Corp. who allegedly exchanged hardware for access to an array of pirated software.
A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted 17 people, including a former Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) employee and two Europeans, for allegedly infringing the copyright on more than 5,000 computer software programmes.
Of those indicted, 12 were allegedly members of the group known as ``Pirates with Attitudes'' (PWA), a software piracy ring that was infiltrated by government investigators last year.
Their Web site, identified by prosecutors as ``Sentinel'' or ``WAREZ'', was located on a computer at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec and accumulated software that was stripped of its embedded copy protection by members.
Programmes available for downloading to those provided access via a secure Internet protocol address included operating systems, applications such as word processing and data analysis, games and MP3 music files, prosecutors said.
Four employees of Santa Clara, California-based Intel (NasdaqNM:INTC - news) shipped hardware to the site in Canada in 1998 to give it more storage capacity. In exchange, they and other Intel employees were to be given access to the pirated software, which a fifth employee allegedly arranged.
The company was unaware of the scheme, prosecutors said.
Another defendant was an employee of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp. who allegedly supplied bootleg copies of the software giant's products for the site. He also allegedly gave access to Microsoft's internal network to the ringleader of PWA.
The alleged ringleader, Robin Rothberg, 32, also known by the online moniker ``Marlenus,'' of North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, was charged in February with conspiring to violate the copyrights on thousands of computer programmes.
He has been out of jail on bond but was summoned to appear in Chicago.
Among those indicted were alleged PWA members from Belgium and Sweden.
Last year, the Justice Department said it was launching an initiative to combat piracy and counterfeiting of intellectual property.
``This is the most significant investigation of copyright infringement involving the use of the Internet conducted to date by the FBI,'' said Kathleen McChesney, head of the FBI's Chicago office.
If convicted, the defendants could spend five years in prison and pay a $250,000 fine, or they could be ordered to pay a fine totalling twice the gross gain to any defendant or twice the gross loss to any victim, whichever is greater. |
