Chandigarh partner arrested for Microsoft piracy

CHANDIGARH, INDIA: Microsoft legal team along with the local police conducted a raid at city-based RS Computech, located at Sector -20 and seized pirated software CDs of the company resulting in the arrest of the culprit.

The arrested dealer is one of the members of Chandigarh based IT association. Sanjiv Walia, president of Chandigarh IT association confirmed the raids and said, "Despite our association repeatedly warning to our members to not to indulge in any kind of software piracy, still some of dealers are looking to make quick money."

He added: "On behalf of Punjab All Computer dealers Association (PACT), the association had signed a MoU with the legal team of Microsoft last year. As per the understanding, Microsoft did not conduct any raids on our members across Punjab for the last one year. But in the last two to three months, Microsoft had informed that the piracy in the state has been on the raise and there was a drop in the Microsoft business in the state."

The association has been educating its members on anti-piracy. Even during the recent PACT meet in Moga, the association warned all its affiliates to educate its members and not indulge in anything that is related to piracy.

Seeing the growing menace of piracy in Punjab, the legal team of Microsoft has decided to roll back the decision of not to conduct raids on the association members.

Gurpreet Singh Jagdev of Ludhiana IT Association and a member of PACT said: "All the IT associations of Punjab have been working jointly with Microsoft. We have taken serious efforts to educate our members to not to indulge into any illegal activity of piracy."

Walia also added that with the intervention of senior team of PACT, the arrested dealer was released on conditional bail. He further reconfirmed that Chandigarh and Punjab IT association is committed to Microsoft and it will take steps to not to repeat such incidents in the future.