London — Software monopolist Microsoft on Wednesday flexes their legal muscles by announcing that it has initiated legal proceedings against U.K.-based electronics retailer giant Comet for allegedly selling more than 94,000 sets of counterfeit Windows Vista and XP recovery CDs.
The Redmond-based Windows-wrangler claims that electronics retailer Comet garnered $2.2 million selling superfluous recovery discs to customers who purchased Windows PCs and laptops, alleging that the practice amounts to piracy. The suit contends that the company produced the counterfeit discs at its factory in Hampshire, U.K. and then sold them to retailers across the region.
UK retailer Comet is being sued by Microsoft over counterfeit Windows recovery discs. Photograph: Jonathan Warner/Comet
Microsoft filed suit in the High Court of London on Wednesday against Comet, alleging it of illegally duplicating Windows XP and Vista to create operating system recovery discs.
“Comet produced and sold thousands of fake Windows CDs to innocent customers in the United Kingdom,” David Finn, associate general counsel of Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting at Microsoft, said in a statement.
Finn described the alleged counterfeiting as “unfair” to Comet’s customers and said Microsoft expected better from its retailers. “Comet approached tens of thousands of customers who had bought PCs with the necessary recovery software already on the hard drive, and offered to sell them unnecessary recovery discs for #14.99,” said Finn, in a statement Wednesday.
At current exchange rates, #14.99 is equivalent to $23.50.
As per the norm, recovery discs have disappeared as major computer makers cut costs. Instead, OEMs typically partition the hard disk drive and place a recovery utility and the necessary startup operating system files on a portion of the drive.
Not only was the recovery software already delivered on the hard drive by the computer manufacturer but, if the customer so wished, a recovery disc could also have been obtained by the customer from the PC manufacturer for free or a minimal amount, Finn noted. Moreover, users can create a recovery disc themselves in Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 7.
In response to the suit, Comet Group PLC, which operates about 250 stores in the U.K., issued a statement saying it “acted in the very best interests of its customers” and that it does not believe its production of the discs infringed on Microsoft’s intellectual property.
The retailer said it furnished buyers with the disks because manufacturers rarely pack them with their PCs any more, and that it made them “on behalf of its customers”.
“Comet believes its customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery discs with each new Microsoft Operating System based computer,” the retailer said in its statement. Accordingly, Comet is satisfied that it has a good defense to the claim and will defend its position vigorously.
Normally, recovery discs are needed to re-install the operating system on crashed computers. But in recent times, PC manufacturers have increasingly discontinued providing such discs in favor of putting recovery data on the hard drive with the expectation that customers will make their own recovery discs.
However, Finn made it clear that Microsoft regards Comet’s recovery discs as pirated copies of Windows.
“Illegally replicating software and then selling it is counterfeiting,” said Finn.
Comet is owned by French retail company Kesa Electricals, though it is in the process of being purchased by private equity firm OpCapita.