p2pnet.net News: … looks like the title to the latest shoot-em-up computer game from Bill and the Boyz.

But it isn’t. Rather, it’s the official name for a joint FBI-Microsoft ‘operation’ which proves the entertainment industry isn’t the only corporate outfit using national, tax-payer funded police agencies to track down criminals whose activities impact on the bottom line.

“Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don’t pay for the software,” Bill Gates told University of Washington’s business school students in 1998, going on:

“Someday they will, though. And as long as they’re going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”

It’s the next decade and Microsoft is lauding the Los Angeles FBI at the end of Digital Marauder, a two-year investigation that culminated in the largest-ever seizure of counterfeit Microsoft software and components.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment against 11 people, says Microsoft in a statement, going on:

“In late August, the FBI executed three search warrants and arrested 11 individuals in California, Washington and Texas. The individuals are allegedly responsible for a wide variety of software piracy operations, including unauthorized media replication, printing of counterfeit documentation and distribution of counterfeit software.”

The FBI’s leadership “forged an unprecedented collaborative partnership between law enforcement and industry that has led to cracking this sophisticated case,” said Rich LaMagna, director of worldwide investigations for the digital integrity group at Microsoft.

“We are immensely appreciative of law enforcement’s efforts. With this type of teamwork, we can successfully address cybercrime and fight the 21st-century tactics of today’s criminals.”

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See:-

sort of addicted – TCPA | Palladium – The End? Or the Beginning?, p2pnet, June, 2002

Digital Marauder – Microsoft Praises Joint Effort by Law Enforcement and Industry Resulting in Largest-Ever Seizure, Microsoft, September 16, 2004

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