Microsoft UK has filed a civil suit against two people trading as NiKByte Computers for flogging counterfeit software.

The duo, Andrew Rowe and Nicola Holbrook-Hench, operated from leased premises in Loughborough University's Student Union. Neither the union or the University were involved in Nikbyte, Microsoft says.

But students may have bought the hooky software from Row and Holbrook-Hench, according to the company.

NiKByte sourced its illegal Microsoft software from two groups of bootleggers:

• Patrick Hammond, Carol Ann Hammond, David P Donati, David Prince and Andrew Bennett, who had been trading between December 1998 and December 2000 as variously NB Marketing, Datadisc, Atlantic Trading and ATCO; and
• Nasar Hussain, Majid Hussain, Quba Hussain, Kasa Hussain, Naveed Anwar and Kunwal Munir, who traded between January 2000 and October 2002 as CA International, Softech, Bluepoint Technologies, IT Systems, Global IT, Millennium Systems, Apex and Initial IT. ®