A US software pirate has been sentenced to 18 months' jail by a Virginia court for punting illicit programmes via a pay-for-access website, Australian IT reports (http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,11899303%5E15409%5E%5Enbv%5E15306%2D15322,00.html).

Over six months, Kishan Singh, 33 of Lanham, Maryland, sold thousands of cracked copies of Adobe, Autodesk, Macromedia, and Microsoft programmes with an estimated (presumably retail) value of between $70,000 and $120,000.

On 14 October Singh pleaded guilty to a charge of copyright infringement. The prosecution said: "Evidence revealed that thousands of pirated software programs were downloaded from Singh's website by users from around the world during the six-month period charged." ®

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