Adobe & Symantec sue eBay software sellers
Written by admin on February 18th, 2008 in devices and gadgets.
Citing a lack of action on the part of eBay, both Adobe and Symantec have decided to take action against certain sellers offering pirated software on the auction site.
The lawsuits have been started by the Software & Information Industry Association Auction Litigation Program. This program represents a wide range of companies that counts well know names such as Adobe, Symantec, McAfee, Oracle, Apple, Autodesk, and Borland on its list of members. The job of the SIIA is to monitor a number of websites, and auction sites in particular, to see if their members’ products are being sold illegally.
This latest action has identified 9 individuals found to be selling pirated versions of software, including Adobe Photoshop CS3, Symantec pcAnywhere 11.0 Host & Remote, pcAnywhere 10.5 Host & Remote, and Norton Utilities 8.0 for Mac.
Usually companies try to work with eBay to remove the offending items and either ban or take action against individual sellers. SIIA said that any communication with eBay had not resulted in much action. Keith Kupferschmid, senior vice president of the SIIA’s Internet anti-piracy division, said:
We haven’t had very much success in getting [Ebay] to work with us … Our goal is to give illegal software sellers a rude awakening so that unsuspecting software buyers and legitimate sellers are protected … For too long, auction sellers have been able to sell pirated software while risking only the removal of their auction.
eBay has yet to make comment on the action being taken.
Read more at PC Pro and the SIIA press release (PDF).
Matthew’s Opinion
If there is an organization already out there monitoring auction sites for illegal software sales, then surely it is in eBay’s interest to work with it. Monitoring all auctions to ensure they are not illegal must be a mammoth undertaking, and therefore working with an organization created to find out piracy and take action against it would relieve some of the pressure.
We need to hear eBay’s comments regarding this before making a judgment, as it may not be as clear cut as the SIIA is suggesting. If it is just a case of eBay not taking the time to work with it or respond to communication, then it is a fault of eBay and the management structures and procedures the company has in place.
Tags: hi fi, DVD, equipment, lcd
