Novell makes pirate walk the plank

Novell is suing a man for copyright and trademark infringement after he allegedly tried to flog almost $48,000 worth of illegal software over the Net. The suit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges that Gregg Olsen of Plainview, NY, tried to sell a pirate version of NetWare using the Yahoo! auction site. When Novell investigators made a test purchase they found a fake license diskette for 1,000 users along with a NetWare 4.11 operating system CD. The total retail value of the product was said to be worth almost $48,000. "We have refocused our efforts in combating piracy to include those individuals who are offering illegal Novell products over the Internet," said David Bradford, senior VP and general counsel for Novell. "This will continue as a priority for us as long as people use the Internet as a vehicle to abuse our products and programmes," he said. ®