BizLawCentral: Texas man jailed for selling counterfiet software

Timothy Kyle Dunaway, 24, of Wichita Falls, Texas, was yeterday sentenced to 41 months in prison by U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor in Wichita Falls for selling counterfeit computer software through the Internet in breach of criminal copyright infringement laws. By the standards of international (mainly Russian and Eastern European) suppliers of illegal copies of software, Dunaway's USD1 million (retail prices) was relatively small.

According to court documents, from July 2004 to May 2008, Dunaway operated approximately 40 Web sites that sold a large volume of downloadable counterfeit software without permission from the copyright owners. Dunaway admitted he operated computer servers in Vienna, Austria and Malaysia.

The servers were seized with co-operation from the authorities in those countries.

But it is the method of marketing his product that will cause consternation: he simply paid for adverts on major search engines - and by extension, that means on millions of websites worldwide operated by honest webmasters.

His turnover during that period was some USD800,000 and he bought a Rolex watch and a Ferrari with his proceeds. Both have been confiscated.