Police grab pirated software, issue warning

AFP seizes over 200 counterfeit software products from a resident in Victoria with some containing malware.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has warned against buying cheap counterfeit computing products after seizing pirated software goods containing a Trojan virus from a resident in Lyndhurst, Victoria.

A 40-year old woman has been charged with selling fraudulent software. This included Adobe software which contained a Trojan virus capable of gathering personal for identity theft crimes.

The AFP also seized a compact disc burner and more than 200 counterfeit software products.

“One study of Intellectual Property crime estimated one in five Australian households had knowingly purchased pirated computer or video goods,” AFP commander of crime operations, Peter Sykora, said in a statement.

“This case highlights the money you save from purchasing a cheaper, counterfeit product may come at a high cost to your privacy.

Identity theft could place your personal and financial information in the hands of organised criminals.”

The maximum penalty for selling counterfeit goods in Australia is five years imprisonment and two years for trademark offences.

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More about: Adobe, Australian Federal Police, Federal Police
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Comments

Kevin

1

Several issues here. Yes jail anyone selling counterfeit software.
Most illegal downloads are done by home users. Professionals buy the product.
The question that should be asked is why do people download such software when only highly trained professionals have the knowledge to utilize the full potential of such product like PhotoShop. After all ther is ample free or cheap applications that can do more than enough for the home user. I doubt if downloaders use their illegally obtained applications at all and if they do most would use less than 5% of the application's resources.
I believe there is a compulsive behaviour problem manifesting itself into habitual downloading.
The likes of Adobe, media companies and such need to approach the whole illegal downloding problem as a doctor would treating a disease. Downloaders are not criminals, they don't profit from the downloads, they have a phsycolocial problem.
I am a retired radio announcer and mobile DJ so I have accumulated a vast music library of some 22,000 tracks. If I played every track I would need to live to be 200 years old before i heard them all so how can mass downloader of music ever get the time to listen to them. They can't. So the question remains, why?

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