$200 fine for teacher purchasing pirated Microsoft Windows

Russian authorities originally charged school teacher, Alexander Ponosov, with installing pirated versions of Microsoft Office and Windows on PCs at the school where he taught. The case was thrown out of court after the court said Ponosov’s actions were “insignificant”. Posonov had claimed the PCs had come with the pirated software pre-installed by sub-contractors.

In a bizarre twist Ponosov has ended up being fined US$200 (about half a month’s salary or a crate of Stolichnaya) after he joined prosecutors who lodged an appeal after the first case was dropped. The appeal led to Ponosov’s retrial and subsequent guilty verdict and fine. Bet he wishes he’d kept quiet now. But no, he does plan to appeal again. Just keep on digging mate, keep on digging.

However the story sounds a bit fishy to us? How come there’s no reports of the authorities pursuing the ‘sub-contractors’ that Ponosov bought the PCs from? Also Russia is on an American ‘watch list’ regarding copyright protection, perhaps the Russian authorities think that Posonov’s conviction will satisfy the Americans? It just smacks of a political manoeuvre by Russia in its effort to join the World Trade Organisation. What do you think?

Source: CNN