Case Writeup

“A
Clear Case
of
Software Piracy?”

Submitted By :
Rashi Jain
Sushma Pareek
Mehak oberoi
Prasanjit Goswami
Nirmal Maloo
 Summary of Case
Microsoft Corporation, Washington, USA, is a leading
manufacturer of software and has a copyright to manufacture and
sell all of them. Microsoft gets all of its works registered in the
USA. Microsoft is the whole and sole owner of its works. Microsoft
also has a good hold on Indian market and many of its products
are available here.

In India though actually seeing, Microsoft is facing a problem of

software piracy, under which many of the products of Microsoft
are sold by illegal methods of copying and counterfeiting.
Microsoft found one company which was carrying on business of
loading its software products on hard disks. Deepak Raval &
Company were into business of assembling computers, used to
sell pirated copies of many softwares of Microsoft. They infringed
Microsoft’s copyright as they had no authorization.

Microsoft filed a suit against the company in High Court on

account of piracy. As it had to suffer a huge loss to its business. It
was facing the same problem like internet piracy, reproducing
software and challenge on the genuineness of the software.
Microsoft collected serious proofs against the company by
assigning a fake buyer for the firm and that buyer helped them
out to take prints of the software installed on the harddisk.

Microsoft sent a letter to Deepak Raval & Company telling them

about the infringement and called in for a meeting but the
company people didn’t turn up in the meeting then Microsoft filed
a suit in court and prayed for permanent injunction against the
company. The Court evidently allowed its prayers and gave
decision in favour of Microsoft. As Microsoft had all rights to sell
the product the main aspect of case being strong was the right of
the patented products which are registered.
 Analytical View & Impact on
Indian Economy
As Microsoft is a very large player in market of software and IT
products, it has a major advantage of having all the products
registered which makes the product liasoned to the owner and
without his prior approval it can’t be sold or distributed. In India
the scenario seems to be quite different as for what Microsoft
would have thought, most of the computers used in India are
running on the pirated softwares. This causes serious damage to
our economy as all the pirated softwares are traded undercover
and no taxes are paid to the government, so the government
earnings are reduced to a very large extent.

Microsoft is trying to expand in India but without any serious

reforms in the copyright issue it would take off its hands from
India and would certainly invest somewhere else this would not
let any new foreign investments in India and also the market here
would remain backward and won’t develop if these investments
are not cordially invited and taken proper care of by providing a
safer ground to do business on.

India is investing a lot in IT sector and with such kind of piracy

going on this may lead to serious harm to the economy in various
context as it would not be a good example for foreign investors,
the individual spending on the software purchasing expense
would be reduced and new technological developments can also
get hindered.