By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco for The
Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
The judge in Perm, one of Russia's larger cities, dismissed the
case against schoolteacher Alexander Ponosov as "trivial".
Ponosov, who told AP he was going to celebrate the dismissal by
drinking champagne, was charged with either ordering or knowing of
the installation of bootlegged copies of Windows and Office on 12
PCs. Prosecutors charged Ponosov with major copyright violations,
causing damages of $10,000, but sought a mere $100 fine instead of
seeking full recovery or the maximum five-year prison sentence
Russia is one of the largest centers for counterfeit software.
Despite a decline in piracy in 2005, It still ranks number nine in
the top 10 list of offenders, with 83 per cent of software being
pirated, according to the BSA. Vietnam is top on 90 per cent.
The case gained notoriety after Mikhail Gorbachev, the last
premier of the Soviet Union and Nobel Peace Prize winner, appealed
personally to Microsoft's Bill Gates to "show mercy and withdraw
the claims against Ponosov".
Vladimir Putin, Russian president Vladimir Putin took time out
from lambasting US foreign policy last week to dismiss the case as "complete nonsense, simply
ridiculous...The law recognizes the concept of someone who
purchased the product in good faith," he said.
Microsoft distanced itself from the case by expressing its
confidence that the Russian courts would "make a fair decision...Mr
Ponosov's case is a criminal case and as such was initiated and
investigated by the public prosecutor's office."
The case highlights Microsoft's difficulty in bringing the legal
systems of former Eastern Bloc countries and emerging economies
into line on piracy. Romanian president Traian Basescu recently
told Gates to his face that software piracy had helped build his
country's software industry. The irony is that pirated copies of
Windows benefit Microsoft's overall strategy of excluding Linux
from desktops and servers.
© The Register
2007
