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Glenn it's to bad she can't speak, I'd love to hear her story! <eom>
I imagine there is some way she can communicate. We may get a lot more facts over time.
By the way, there is a criminal in the small town of Meadville and one in Erie. These criminals used two of the ISPs I use.
"SPA: Suit Filed Against Two Pirating Software on the Internet; Found Providing Software Piracy Tools for Downloading
PR Newswire - October 23, 1997 17:54
%MLM %CPR V%PRN P%PRN
WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The Software Publishers Association
(SPA) announced today that it had filed a lawsuit against two individuals for
software copyright infringement. The suit alleges that the individuals were
uploading copyrighted material to the Internet.
Before filing the lawsuit on behalf of seven of its member companies, SPA
subpoenaed two ISPs for the names of the site operators offering the
copyrighted material through two Web sites. Both sites provided bootleg
serial numbers for installing pirate software, and software piracy tools
designed to circumvent technical protection for copyrighted software. The
addresses of the sites, which the ISPs have now removed or blocked for general
public access, were www.velocity.net/~overlord and
chisel.toolcity.net/~overlord.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of
Pennsylvania, came after an exhaustive seven month investigation tracking each
site and monitoring the alleged infringing material on each site. More than
53,000 people visited the sites during that time period, and all of them had
access to the infringing materials being offered. The sites provided an
extensive list of serial numbers for approximately 4500 software products,
some of which retail for thousands of dollars. When printed out in hard copy
format, the list runs to 78 single-spaced pages of serial numbers.
Additionally, the sites contained an extensive software piracy tool
section similar to that highlighted by SPA in Congressional hearings last
month.
"These Internet sites, and thousands of others, have become a place to
fence and acquire pirate software. Bootleg serial numbers enable people to
use pirated software downloaded from other sites, and software piracy tools
enable them to make unauthorized copies," said Peter Beruk, SPA director of
North America anti-piracy.
"This is only the tip of the iceberg. This lawsuit is the first of its
kind alleging this type of infringement, a type of piracy which has become far
too common on the Internet. In fact, a recent search for illegal software on
the Internet revealed nearly 17,000 different sites offering infringing
material."
SPA receives approximately 35 new piracy reports every day alleging
copyright infringement. SPA is currently investigating many other Internet
sites and plans to file additional suits once these investigations are
complete. The current law suit was filed in the names of Adobe Systems,
Autodesk, Claris, Corel, Intuit, Macromedia, and Visio.
SPA is the principal trade association of the software industry,
representing the leading publishers as well as start-up firms in the business,
home office, consumer, entertainment and education markets. SPA supports
companies that develop and publish software applications and tools for use on
the desktop, client-server networks and the Internet. SPA's 1200 member
companies account for 85 percent of U.S. revenue for packaged and online
software.
Hundreds of these companies look to SPA to protect their intellectual
property rights around the world. SPA combines strong anti-piracy education
and enforcement efforts through such programs as its piracy hotline
(800-388-7478), the Certified Software Manager (CSM) and Internet in the
Workplace courses, SPAudit, KeyAudit, the Software Management Guide, videos,
posters and other awareness materials. More information on SPA's software
piracy efforts can be found at spa.org.
SOURCE Software Publishers Association
/CONTACT: Peter Beruk, Director of North America Anti-Piracy, ext. 314,
or e-mail, pberuk@spa.org; or David Phelps, Public Relations, ext. 320, or
e-mail, dphelps@spa.org, both of the Software Publishers Association,
202-452-1600/
/Company News On-Call: prnewswire.com or fax, 800-758-5804,
ext. 803080/"
My email is grudolph@toolcity.net and when I am in Erie, I use grudolph@velocity.net. The "bad person" is not me <G>
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