Busting Software Pirates

CARLO CERCHIOLI/GRAZIA NERI for TIME

PIRATE TREASURE: Italy's Piccinni shows off seized booty

On Oct. 29th, police in Bavaria arrested a British man who had fallen asleep in his car at a service station near Aschaffenburg. Officers found Peter Murray-Cowan, 39, dozing at the wheel of an Audi so stuffed with boxes of what appeared to be Microsoft Office 97 Professional software that the car was barely drivable. Sensing counterfeit, police took both driver and 4,000 copies of one of the world's most popular business programs — worth $2 million on the retail market, according to Microsoft — into custody. Murray-Cowan, a British businessman and would-be politician who ran for local office in Suffolk...

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