Microsoft raids Nagpur dealers for selling pirated software

The computer trade in the entire central India was badly shaken on Tuesday and Wednesday when a team of two officers from Microsoft Corporation initiated action against seven major IT dealers for supplying pirated softwares.

Markets from Vidarbha to Chhattisgarh and Jabalpur, where several dealers from here have business interests, were soon awash with rumours about the company gathering evidence against the trade. Unlicensed software was quickly wiped out and many even downed shutters to avoid the raid.

The Microsoft team has been camping in the city for several days to gather evidence against the seven targeted dealers. They purchased computers from the dealers and got them loaded with the pirated version of Microsoft software.

The dealers billed them only for the machines. This was used as evidence by the company to charge them with dealing in pirated software.

The company, however, did not take action under the anti-piracy laws against them. It sent notices to each of the seven dealers and called them for one-on-one meetings at a city hotel. The dealers were given two options of either attending the meeting or facing penal action involving three years' imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2 lakh.

At the meeting, the dealers were interviewed by the company's legal consultant Keshav Dhakkad and legal officer Satish Pokhriyal. They were asked to pay a penalty of Rs 90,000 and sign an agreement that they would refrain from dealing in pirated software in future.

The dealers are learnt to have contested the amount and bargained for reducing the amount. No penalties were paid as their pleas for reduction in the amount were referred to the company's head office in Delhi.

Later, talking to newsmen, Dhakkad said that there was no question of reducing the penalty. It is the company's policy to slap a flat penalty of Rs 90,000 on whoever was found dealing in or using pirated software, he said. Besides, the penalty included the cost of intelligence gathering.

"It is only a token penalty. The company could have taken legal action against them but did not because it did not want to harass them and spoil relationships. The objective of our exercise was to tell them that as business partners, we must do our business honestly. We told them not to risk their business by dealing in pirated software," he said.

Dhakkad said that Microsoft zeroed in on Nagpur because of reports of widespread piracy here. A majority of computers purchased in the city are run on pirated software which is supplied by local vendors. On an all-India level, 76 per cent computer users use pirated software, he said.

Microsoft, which has created the most popular operating system, is trying to control the problem by bringing down the price of some of its programmes, he said. However, a dealer said that the company should have taken action against all dealers instead of just seven.