SAM Ekodom

2013: Penalty of Microsoft for use of the pirated software

At the end of October, 2013 the Court of Appeal met requirements of Microsoft for the claim to "Construction and Experimental Mechanical Engineering" company from Rostov-on-Don (is a part of SEM Ekodom, plant on production of constructions for construction), in which the corporation required to pay it more than 600 thousand rubles for copyright violation.

The corporation required compensation, in particular, for use of non-licensed copies of its products Microsoft Windows XP, different versions of Microsoft Office and also SQL Server, however according to the results of consideration of the case in the first instance was refused.

As it appears from judicial materials, in 2012 in "Construction and experimental mechanical engineering" with check the staff of local department "To"the Ministry of Internal Affairs appeared suddenly. During it system units with the set copies of the above-stated products were withdrawn from the company. After that, claiming that copies of products non-licensed, Microsoft took with the claim legal action, referring, including, on the conclusion based on a research of the withdrawn information carriers.

Refusing the claim, the court of first instance pointed to absence of proof of the fact that the defendant violated copyright of Microsoft, according to the court records.

"Meanwhile, at permission of a question of what party it is necessary to prove the circumstances important for case of protection of copyright, the court needs to consider that the defendant is obliged to prove accomplishment of requirements of the legislation by it when using works and objects of the neighboring rights", - notes Court of Appeal as opposed to the solution of the first instance.

Otherwise, the physical person or legal entity is recognized as the violator of copyright and for it there comes civil responsibility according to the law, add in court.

Information on need of attachment in a visible place to the PC body of authenticity certificates as confirmation of existence of the license for OS for the PC is public, said in the decision of the court of appeal.

Defendant's representatives in trial on the petition for appeal of Microsoft said that at the time of the hearing of the case system units are disassembled, and it is impossible to provide them on an additional research. With respect thereto, having referred to the fact that the defendant did not provide proofs that authenticity certificates of software products on the body were pasted, the court made the decision for benefit of Microsoft.

It should be noted that in most cases claims of software developers with an indemnification claim for copyright violation are satisfied in the first instance. As of fall of 2013 the card file of arbitration court contains in total more than 500 cases of this sort with participation of Microsoft.