Tuesday the justice’s court of Oktyabrsky district of Samara made a decision on the case of the editor of Samara office of Novaya Gazeta Sergei Kurt-Adjiev. He was fined for 15,000 rubles for using the pirate software.   

The criminal case about infringement of copyright and neighboring rights was started in May 2007. Over the course of the proceedings Mr. Kurt-Adjiev affirmed that the expertise had been forged on the ground of which accusation was brought. He submitted the installation disks and the documents proving the legal origin of the software used and his innocence. However, all that did not make any impression on the court.  

Reminding, the complaint about Mr. Kurt-Adjiev was sent to the prosecutor’s office by Alexander Sudarev, the representative of 1C Company. In June this man was caught in the act of bribe taking. The bribe of 400,000 rubles had been passed to him by a representative of one municipal enterprise in Samara. The investigation believes that was a bribe for release and waiver related to alleged use of the pirate software. The further examination established the fact that all the programs installed on computers of that enterprise were licensed. It turned out that A.Sudarev had been lying when making allegations about using of pirate software.      

It appears that such a scheme was rather popular in the region. First, the representative of the company affirms he has found pirate software and threatens to start a criminal case. Then a suggestion follows of coming to an amicable agreement. And if it comes to the court, the expert opinion is given by an employee of the company selling software in the region, i.e. an interested party. When all that was exposed, Novaya Gazeta, human rights association Agora and information agency Volga Inform announced they are ready to give a help to all those grieved by Mr. Sudarev, and began to collect information about forged cases in the region, relate to the alleged use of pirate software products.       

Nonetheless, the state prosecutorial agent Tatiana Leontyeva insisted that she had no grounds for disbelieving the testimony by Mr. Sudarev. Despite the fact an alternative expert, invited by Mr. Kurt-Adjiev’s defense, found that the expertise presented by Mr. Sudarev contained mistakes in terms of dates and names of the software products, Mr. Kurt-Adjiev was refused three times his request for carrying out additional expertise. 

At length the prosecution gave up part of the charges and insisted only on the fact of use of pirate software and required the fine of 40,000 rubles to be imposed.    

Now the “pirate” software must be deleted from the office computers after which they are to be returned to the owner. Sergei Kurt-Adjiev has announced already he is going to appeal the court’s decision. The appeal is planned to be placed by his lawyers with the Oktyabrsky district court of Samara at the beginning of the next week.