Tuesday, March 26, 2013

California Attorney General Claims Foreign Companies Using 'Pirated' Software Represent Unfair Competition

Two years ago, Techdirt wrote about the important report "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies," which explored how media and software piracy in emerging markets is largely a matter of economics: people and businesses simply can not afford the price of Western style and other sources. This has not stopped the media and IT companies in the world to demand that governments should impose tougher penalties for their own people.

In this context, it is not surprising that people are looking for new ways to "encourage" foreign users to buy these products at high prices. Already in 2011, Microsoft has written proposal mad to buyers of any product of a foreign company using unauthorized software in the U.S. official. Things went quiet after that, and I thought this idea was abandoned. No luck: judging by the history found @ teirdes, he's back, but in a modified form:
Attorney General Kamala Harris of California filed a complaint against two apparel companies in India and China for alleged use of pirated software in the production of cloth for export and to be sold in the state.

You might wonder why the software used by textile companies in India and China have to do with California, the answer according to the Attorney General:

The lawsuits allege that clothing manufacturers who have not paid fees for software licenses have a significant cost advantage in the production of low-margin, transportation and sale.
This seems like a fairly large extent. After all, the savings from the use of pirated copies is spread over a large number of items, and will probably amount to fractions of a penny each. This difference will be overwhelmed by other factors - for example, the fact that the fixed and variable costs more in India and China are much lower than in California.
But there's a bigger problem here: the attempt to extraterritorial application of U.S. laws. In an excellent analysis of this case points spicy IP:

Software

U.S. companies have the right to sue for copyright infringement against Indian companies in India under the Copyright Act 1957 and exercised this right during the past 10 years years, with a rate High success.

If there is a problem with piracy in India, there are laws and there that the Indian courts and can cope. The attempt to impose

U.S. laws in India

undermines current comprehensive legal framework seems to work reasonably well. Does America really wants other governments claim that the actions on American soil have violated foreign laws, and must be tried abroad?


For an Indian manufacturer, a New Delhi trial itself can be expensive, but the defense of a suit in California will be at least 20 to 30 times more expensive. It is likely that only the pre-trial expenses exceed the total cost of export. The cheapest option is to buy software licenses, and that is exactly what the Americans say. They hope to create fear among the Indian exporters enough to come to the U.S. software company nearest shopping cart software
This is exactly how copyright and Working patents trolls. Make the process of treating them as costly and impractical, it is easier and cheaper to pay regardless of whether they are right. However, this is not how government lawyers are supposed to work. Fear
most important now is that the U.S. software publishers operating in India is used to extract such applications not only license fee to come, but the damage to the scammers use Software.
Find best price for : --General----software----California----Delhi----Techdirt--

0 comments:

Blog Archive

Blog Archive

About Me