SIIA Continues Aggressive Online Piracy Fight With Clip-Art Lawsuits

by Mike Godfrey, for LawAndTax-News.com, Washington

15 April 2009

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries, has announced the filing of 17 new online piracy lawsuits.

Three cases in this new round of lawsuits represent SIIA’s first-ever legal actions against graphics pirates, who illegally copied, altered and/or distributed copyrighted computer images commonly known as “clip art.”

SIIA filed the graphics lawsuits on behalf of member company Imageline. The remaining 14 lawsuits were filed against various software sellers who illegally copied and sold SIIA member Adobe’s products on eBay and Amazon.com.

“SIIA is making every effort in this challenging economic climate to protect the interests of both the software and graphics industries. When companies can’t get due credit and compensation for their products, everyone loses – from individual consumers, to the economy as a whole,” explained Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA’s Senior Vice President of Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement, adding:

“These lawsuits have opened a new front in our anti-piracy fight. SIIA is not only pursuing illegal software sellers but is also bringing those who pirate other works such as computer graphics to justice.”

“These latest lawsuits extend SIIA’s industry-leading legal efforts to combat online piracy through both civil and criminal channels,” continued Scott Bain, Litigation Counsel for SIIA.

“Defendants in these cases have deceived the public and hurt the software and computer graphics industries by distributing counterfeit products,” he concluded.

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