By Graeme Wearden, 18 March 2005 12:10
NEWS
Two men who were accused of taking part in a massive global software piracy ring were convicted at the High Court this week.
Alex Bell, 32, of Grays, Essex, and Steven Dowd, 42, of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, were both found guilty of conspiracy to defraud. They will be sentenced in May, along with two other men who had pleaded guilty to similar charges.
Dowd and Bell were accused of supplying software for DrinkorDie, a worldwide gang that cracked hundreds of software applications and made them freely available over the internet. Groups such as the Business Software Alliance have estimated that the group cost the software industry millions of pounds in lost sales.
The High Court heard that DrinkorDie operated a sophisticated system where suppliers obtained software and passed it on to crackers who broke the software's copy protection. Testers would then make sure the modified software worked before it was passed onto packagers who uploaded it to a secure web server.
Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK.
Comments
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1. Blinkie
With all those nasty Pirate people being convicted recently. I pressume there will be less Pirate software in circulation, therefore the software companys will now be selling more. MORE SALES = MORE PROFITS and maybe less expensive software? Its okay .. I am not holding my breath.
2. Sucks
I wouldn't hold your breathe
They were arrested in 2001, ie taken out of circulation in 2001, Its only the trial that happened recently..
I doubt you noticed anything get cheaper since then
3. anonymous
It seems to me that the pirates took more care for their customers than the "legitimate" vendors. When are they going to be prosecuted for security breaches and losses incured by users of their faulty software?