Brigantia hits out at Microsoft piracy tactics

CD business: Microsoft has claimed it is focusing its efforts on resellers caught hard-disk loading.

One of the UK’s largest IT trade buying groups has hit out at Microsoft’s anti-piracy tactics, claiming the software giant is failing to focus on the source of the problem.

Iain Shaw, chairman of Brigantia, claimed that his members are being “picked on” and that the vendor’s actions could force them to look for alternative suppliers.

Microsoft’s latest piracy swoop saw it launch legal action against 13 UK resellers (CRN, 21 July).
“Microsoft cannot recover money from the dodgy distributor that was supplying the software, as most are no longer in business,” said Shaw. “So it goes down the chain and targets smaller VARs that probably did not even know they had been sold illegal software.

“If Microsoft offered cash or product rewards, then maybe more VARs would start reporting piracy.”
Michala Wardell, head of anti-piracy at Microsoft, fired back, stressing that the recent roundups focused on resellers caught hard-disk loading, not reselling counterfeited software from another source.
She denied claims that Microsoft was being greedy. “Microsoft charges for the PC that is found and allows innocence on other material as a soft warning,” she explained.

Martin Prescott, managing director of VAR RedPC Services, said: “If the software was at a reasonable price to begin with then people would not feel the need to pirate it.”