eBay makes a fee based on the value of goods sold. This seems like a nice chunk of change. Does eBay have to return it? If so, to whom? If not, isn't keeping the proceeds of illegal activity...err, illegal?

I think you may have made an error by thinking that a big corporation has to abide by the same laws as us lowly consumers.

I would have thought they would wriggle out of it by claiming that they do not take a percentage of the sale itself, but make a charge for their services based on the value of the item. If they where literarly taking x percent from a paypal transaction, then I guess they would be profiting directly from crime.

Personally I prefer to buy my stolen goods from a Pete Docherty look-a-like in the pub, he did say he could could get "anyfink you wan't geezer" but I'm not sure he meant factory management software...

Still Amazon is available if people are keen to get ripped off with dodgy 3rd party associates selling counterfeit goods. :-)

Let's see, Rockwell automation is software is used by how many people? I can still get W2K OEM, all I have to do is buy a DIMM that may or may not work. There's certainly a lot of pirated MS software on eBay. Are they next in line?

I wonder if there will become a "standard" court for software piracy, just like there is for patent disputes.

Seems a poor scam that only makes $26k from $5m-worth of software (about 0.5%). How did they counterfeit it - write it out by hand?