Piracy NOT... Spyware in trial software...

FYI...

Piracy NOT - Trial Version of CAD Software Includes Spyware
- http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...s_spyware.html
Apr 28, 2011 - "A trial version of a 3D CAD software package includes "phone-home" functionality that allows the vendor to contact downloaders months later and demand thousands of dollars in licensing fees, according to a class-action lawsuit filed recently in Massachusetts. Plaintiff Miguel Pimentel, downloaded a trial version of TransMagic's CAD conversion software in 2010, then deleted it the same day, according to the lawsuit. About three months later, ITCA, a Curacao firm specializing in intellectual property enforcement, contacted Pimentel and demanded he pay $10,000 in licensing fees plus recurring maintenance fees or face a $150,000 lawsuit. ITCA, which lists Microsoft, Siemens and McAfee among its clients, used "various coercive techniques" to attempt to get Pimentel to pay for the software, according to the complaint in the lawsuit... The lawsuit alleges that TransMagic and ITCA use an anticopying and licensing software package called Sheriff*, from vendor Licensing Technologies, which allows users of the package to record user activities to log files. The tracking software alleged in the case goes beyond reasonable efforts of software vendors to protect themselves... Pimentel, who works for an architect firm, downloaded the software from a different website than TransMagic.com, but he believed the software to be similar to the trial version offered by the company, according to the complaint... The lawsuit accuses TransMagic, ITCA and Licensing Technologies of violating the U.S. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act and the Massachusetts Privacy Act..."
* http://www.sheriff-software.com/features.asp

:fear: :sad: