Anyone who has used eBay to buy software knows that doing so can be risky. Even if you, as the buyer, insist on it being new and sealed in its original packaging, who's to say that the packaging hasn't been counterfeited? Still, plenty of buyers take that risk in hopes of scoring a good deal on things like Photoshop or Office. Now, a new report by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) suggests that most aren't getting a very good deal at all. That's because at least 90 percent of the software sold on eBay is reportedly pirated.
The association, which represents companies like Adobe, Sun, AOL, and Intel, said that auction sites are the biggest offenders in selling pirated software. But while auctions are set up by regular people and not eBay itself, SIIA doesn't let the company off the hook. "Auction piracy would not be such a big problem if SIIA and its members could get better cooperation from eBay and other auction sites," the report said, according to Techworld. "Unfortunately, these sites are often unwilling to take the actions necessary to reduce the high-volume software piracy taking place on their sites."
The SIIA said that some of the most commonly pirated software includes Symantec's Norton AntiVirus, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe DreamWeaver, Intuit TurboTax (if there's ever a pirated software package I wouldn't want to trust, it would be that one), and McAfee Internet Security Suite. "Productivity" software accounted for 34 percent of pirated software last year, the association said, with operating systems making up 23 percent, document management 8 percent, creative at 6 percent, and security also at 6 percent.
The pirated software situation on eBay is so bad that SIIA has been filing a plethora of lawsuits against eBay sellers as of late. Earlier this month, SIIA announced that it had filed nine lawsuits on behalf of Adobe against eBay sellers. This is in addition to two more filed two weeks before, and another lawsuit filed on behalf of Symantec several months ago. "The nine suits represent the most significant legal action SIIA has taken since launching its Auction Litigation Program," the company said. "Our goal is to give illegal software sellers a rude awakening, so that unsuspecting software buyers and legitimate sellers are protected."
eBay did not respond to our request for comment by publication time, but the company does have a few policies against selling illegal software. For example, it prohibits sellers from offering OEM software unless they are selling it with its accompanying hardware, and sellers cannot offload heavily-discounted academic software at all unless they are authorized to do so as an educational reseller. Replicas, counterfeits, and bootlegs (of anything) are strictly prohibited. Still, given eBay's user-driven nature, it is difficult to monitor and evaluate every single auction listing to ensure that the products passing through are legit.
If you have ever purchased illegal software on an auction site like eBay, SIIA encourages you to report the incident through its web site and even get money back to purchase legal copies.
reader comments