Cloned In China

Today, China Suzhou Huqiu District Court claimed the judgement for Tomato Garden Windows xp case, the biggest software pirate case to date in China. Hong Lei, the maker of the Tomato Garden Windows xp, faces 3.5 years in jail and 1 million Yuan (about $147,000) fine. His business partner Sun Xianzhong also gets the same sentence. Chengdu Gongruan Networking Technology co., Ltd, the company that used to run Tomato Garden Windows xp distribution website tomatolei.com( This domain now surprisingly poits to google.cn), gets a sentenced of the confiscation of 2.92 million Yuan of illegal income, and a fine of 8.77 million Yuan. Two other members of Tomato Garden team both get 2 year in jail, 100,000 Yuan fine.

Tomato Garden Windows xp was the most popular pirated edition of Windows xp in China before the Tomato Garden team was crack downed. It’s said that Tomato Garden Windows xp has got installed on over 10 million PCs in China. The Tomato Garden team provided Tomato Garden Windows xp free download to users, packaged with some other pirated software tools, and profited mostly from the advertisement on the highly tracked distribution website tomatolei.com.

June 2008, BSA (Business Software Alliance) representing its menbers, Microsoft and other companies, complained to China Copyright Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security about Hong Lei and his Tomato Garden team’s copyright infringement. During August and December of 2008, the members of Tomato Garden team were arrested one after another, and met public prosecution. Suzhou Huqiu District Court pronounced this First Instance Judgement on 20 August,2009.

[source: NetEase]