Sony BMG Sued for Software Piracy - Assets Seized

posted by DrewWilson in software // 154 days 13 hours 50 minutes ago

Sony BMG, a company known for enforcing its intellectual property rights, is now facing the other end of an Intellectual Property related lawsuit. A report (French) says the complaining company, PointDev, seized some of Sonys assets which revealed that the pirated software appeared on four of their servers.

PointDev, a small software company, mandated a bailiff to raid one of Sony BMGs owned building in January this year. The raid revealed that four of the Sony BMGs owned servers contained the pirated software.

It appears as though the company discovered this when an IT department employee requested assistance for the use of a product called Ideal Migration. When technical support looked into the case, they discovered that the key used to activate the software was a pirated version.

The report continues (Google Translation) as translated by Charles Eddy, a ZeroPaid reader:

"We're not interested in a friendly agreement. This is not just a question of money, but more importantly of principle," rages Paul-Henry Agustoni, CEO of PointDev. "The rate of software piracy software in the business world is very high." According to the Business Software Alliance, an association representing the market's major publishers, 47 % of programs used in businesses would be illegal in France.

"We're forced every week to watch and make sure that pirated keys for our software don't find their way to the Internet. We're a small company with six employees. Instead of spending time protecting ourselves, we could spend that same time improving our company," complains Paul-Henry Agustoni.

Questioned about the fact that this is perhaps the act of a single employee, the CEO of PointDev retorts, "I think that piracy is linked to business politics. If an employee has the necessary budget to buy the software he needs, he will do it. But if he doesn't, he will find alternative means, because the work has to be done one way or another."

Essentially, the PointDev CEO says that the BSA has said that French Corporations have a software piracy rate of 47%. The CEO also says that piracy may even be a part of Sony's business policy - if you can't afford it, pirate it. It is said that Sony was in the process of merging with BMG when the pirating incident occurred.

An additional report (French) (Google Translation) says that the CEO of PointDev wants to make this piracy case an example.

Sony told La Province to not report on the ongoing investigation. Clearly, Sony is not happy that this case was made public at all.

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#1 This sure makes Sony BMG look hypocritical, but this really isn't that surprising. I would be surprised if any large company could be audited and found completely clean of "pirated" software.

posted by manakazero 154 days 9 hours 11 minutes ago
#2 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA & again... HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

posted by axlman 154 days 3 hours 49 minutes ago
#3 Good for the goose...good for Sony BMG.!

I hope it feels REAL good ..!!

posted by Hawkmtnman 154 days 1 hour 3 minutes ago
#4 Sony is behind the actual piracy of an open-sourced p2p app (read 2/3 down) http://www.shareazasecurity.be/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=1070

posted by SkinVista 152 days 20 hours 29 minutes ago
#5 I don't know about this particular product, but speaking of, say, licensing of Microsoft products, good luck to figure out what and how many licenses you need for your particular purpose. You need, say, some server. Go to software dealer, and you find several dozen different licenses, all cryptic. Good luck to guess. Example:

http://www.costcentral.com/searchresults.php?keywords=System+Center+Essentials&GO=GO - 3 pages of licenses for one product, and no explanation whatsoever, as if "Software assurance - 20 PCs - EDU - MOLP - Win - Single Language" or "Microsoft Govt Olp Essen Ml Syst Cntr Svr Sa Nl Locl" is self-explanatory for everyone. What are the chances to not become a pirate?

posted by nonejdjdjd 152 days 7 hours 57 minutes ago
#6 Holy... this story just went viral... O.O

posted by DrewWilson 151 days 16 hours 6 minutes ago
#7 I dont wanna break the news, but actually the original report is clearly not speaking of 47% of pirated software at SonyBMG, but in corporate environment in France. It would be surprising if such figures would be publicly available of a single corporation. Maybe you want to clearify that, before getting sued by SonyBMG...

However it still feels very good :D

posted by nonejdjdjd 151 days 15 hours 19 minutes ago
#8 I noted this myself and made the necessary minor edit.

posted by DrewWilson 151 days 15 hours 3 minutes ago