Greengage pays for mistake

Reseller falls foul of Microsoft anti-piracy campaign

Reseller Greengage has settled out of court with Microsoft for an undisclosed sum, after it was caught buying counterfeit Office 2000 and Office 97 software licences.

The firm becomes the latest victim of Microsoft's campaign against piracy.

The vendor launched 1,000 cases against resellers earlier this year (CRN, 11 March).

Russell Simpson, partner at Greengage, claimed his firm was duped into buying the software by a bogus supplier that assured Greengage it was selling grey-market products from the US and Europe as a result of major OEMs offloading excess stock.

"We were unaware that it would still have been illegal to sell imported Microsoft products," Simpson said. "The licences looked exactly the same as those you receive with a genuine boxed retail software package."

He added that he has learned the hard way that the only way to buy software is through the authorised distribution route. "That is the only sure way of knowing you are buying genuine Microsoft products," he said.

Caroline Smith, channel programmes manager for the UK anti-piracy team at Microsoft, said: "Greengage thought these were genuine grey-market products, but they turned out to be counterfeit.

"The firm did not think it was buying illegal products. Greengage has been a VAR for 10 years, which demonstrates the quality of the counterfeit software on the market."

Smith said that although Greengage bought the counterfeit software unwittingly, other unscrupulous traders make a conscious decision to buy outside authorised distribution.

"All we want is a level playing field for all our genuine channel partners," she said.

Separately, Microsoft has reported that internet software piracy is getting out of control.

In research published at the East Asia Economic Summit, Microsoft claimed there are more than two million web pages offering illegal software.

The number of such sites has risen by 2,000 per cent over the past three years, it claimed.