Pirate gets four years in Taiwan clink

THE CRIMINAL behind 90 per cent of the world’s high quality counterfeit volish software will spend the next four years in clink.

Huang Her-sheng and three fellow fakers were sent down by a Taiwanese court. The sentences ranged from 18 months with Huang’s four years equalling the heaviest ever Taiwanese sentence for software piracy.

Huang ran Taipei based distributor Maximus Technology Inc., which over a six year period produced and dispatched $900 million in fakes to resellers and users in 22 countries from two CD plants.

John Newton, manager of the Intellectual Property Crime project at INTERPOL, said: "The criminals behind counterfeit syndicates are organised, resourceful and willing to spend large amounts of money to develop and ship pirated goods to markets all over the world. Piracy is a crime, pure and simple, and it is imperative we coordinate our efforts across the globe to stop these criminal syndicates and this illicit trade."

"The prison sentences handed down in this case in Taiwan - and the dozens of other criminal cases brought by prosecutors around the world against others associated with these Taiwan-based defendants - provide another stark reminder of the consequences of counterfeiting Microsoft products," said David Finn, associate general counsel for Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft.

There was no mention of any fine or whether ultimately the whole operation turned a profit for the perps. µ