WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), working on behalf of its member companies, settled the second case arising from its Auction Litigation Program. Today, two defendants in the case -- Kevin Liu and G.T. Tian -- paid a total of $100,000 in damages, as well as agreeing to stop selling illegal software. They also provided SIIA with records identifying their customers and suppliers of the pirated software.

The suit, Symantec Corporation v. Kevin Liu, et al., filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, was among the first filed under SIIA's Auction Litigation Program, which aims to monitor popular online auction sites, identify individuals or groups selling pirated software and prosecute those pirates on behalf of the association's member companies.

In the suit, SIIA, on behalf of member-company Symantec, accused defendants Liu and Tian of infringing the copyrights and trademarks owned by Symantec in Norton pcAnywhere, Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier, and Norton Ghost. Liu and Tian, and the businesses they run, are residents of New Jersey who were pirating software on eBay using various eBay user IDs between October 2005 and December 2005. Combined, they completed well over 8,000 auctions on eBay over the past two years. Defendants sold the software, having a retail price of more than $750,000, for approximately $123,000.

"Selling pirated software, especially through online auction sites, is a growing problem that hurts both business and consumers and threatens the credibility and viability of online auctions," says Keith Kupferschmid, VP of SIIA's Software Anti-Piracy Division. "Defendants Liu and Tian learned the hard way that selling pirated software does not pay."

Liu and Tian were highly organized and operated dozens of different eBay identities, easily circumventing eBay's user registration fraud prevention. They acquired their product from other seemingly-legal sources and SIIA will be pursuing those other sources in order to prevent any further sale of illegal product from them.

"If I had known that SIIA was checking eBay for software piracy, and if I had known the software was pirated and that I'd have to pay such a high fine, I would have never sold the pirated software to begin with," said defendant Kevin Liu.

Consumers should be extra-cautious when purchasing software through online auctions. If the price is too good to be true -- it probably is.

SIIA's Auction Litigation Program

SIIA's Auction Litigation Program aims to monitor popular online auction sites, identify individuals or groups selling pirated software and prosecute those pirates on behalf of the association's member companies. The SIIA Auction Litigation Program was designed to establish a much greater level of deterrence among pirate and/or counterfeit software sellers on auction sites such as eBay, because current strategies, such as taking down auctions through eBay's Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program, have not adequately remedied the problem.

Through the program, SIIA filed three suits in mid-May and two more in November. Several more suits will be filed over the coming weeks. As additional targets are identified and approved by SIIA members, SIIA will be filing suits against these targets on a regular basis. SIIA and its members believe that such a continued vigilant effort on their behalf will do more to stop piracy on auction sites than anything else.

About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit http://www.siia.net/.

CONTACT: Keith Kupferschmid, VP Intellectual Property of Software &
Information Industry Association, +1-202-789-4442; or Kevin King of Horn
Group, +1-703-286-0814, for Software & Information Industry Association

Web site: http://www.siia.net/

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