The global software industry was on Friday celebrating what it said was a landmark victory against Chinese piracy after a district court sent four men to prison and handed them hefty fines for distributing counterfeit versions of Microsoft’s Windows XP and other computer programs over the internet.
Huqin District People’s Court in Suzhou sentenced Sun Xiansheng and Hong Lei, the founders and main executives of Tomato Garden, a website that generated advertising revenues by offering pirated software for free, to 3½ years in prison and a fine of Rmb1m ($146,000) each. Others involved got smaller fines and jail sentences.
