While using pirate software is wrong and illegal, we guess it is understandable that for individual users, paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars for a single piece of software does seem a bit expensive, but for companies to use pirated software? That might be a slightly different story and unfortunately when you do get caught, the consequences can be pretty severe.Such is the case with clothing store Forever 21 who has recently been hit with a lawsuit by Adobe who alleges that the company had been using pirated copies of their software. The lawsuit claims that Forever 21 had installed pirated copies of Adobe Photoshop, Acrobat, and Illustrator, and it seems that they’re not alone.
Autodesk and Corel are also taking part in the lawsuit alleging that the company have installed pirated copies of Autodesk, WinZip, and PaintShopPro, and apparently “continued their infringing activities even after being contacted by Adobe regarding the infringement.” It is unclear as to how Adobe or the other companies learnt about this infringement, but chances are it could have been manually reported by an employee or former employee at the company, as is usually the case in these types of situations.
It is unclear as to how much Adobe, Corel, and Autodesk are asking for in terms of damages, but according to the lawsuit, “It would be difficult to ascertain the amount of money damages that would afford Plaintiffs adequate relief at law for Defendants’ continuing acts and omissions complained of herein, and a multiplicity of judicial proceedings would be required.”