Microsoft Applauds Strong Piracy Conviction

Microsoft applauded a federal court's decision Thursday to jail a man convicted of hawking faked certificates of authenticity for the company's software. Judge Orinda D. Evans of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia sentenced Justin Harrison to 46 months in prison for his participation in the crime ring. Harrison ran Sales International, which participated in the trafficking of the certificates.

"The sentence recognizes the value of intellectual property and the threat that software piracy presents to the global economy and consumers throughout the world," Microsoft said in a statement. The case, which was investigated by the FBI, found that Sales International was distributing Microsoft software with the faked certificates.