Best Buy Accused of Software Piracy

System recovery software maker Winternals said Wednesday that it had been granted a temporary restraining order over alleged copyright infringement by Best Buy and its Geek Squad subsidiary. Winternals claims the retailer has been using pirated and unlicensed copies of its Windows recovery software following a breakdown in licensing talks.

The restraining order was part of a lawsuit filed by Winternals last Thursday in a U.S. District Court in Austin. The suit says Best Buy has been knowingly using the pirated software, including ERD Commander 2005.

That software boots a dead computer into a Windows-like interface in order to allow for diagnostic tests and system recovery, and can restore deleted data, reset passwords, copy files, and access Windows Restore Points.

According to the suit, Best Buy had approached Winternals about a license in October of last year. The agreement would have covered almost all 12,000 Geek Squad employees at a cost of several million dollars.

To test out the usability of the software, Best Buy then signed a trial-and-test agreement with Winternals that included trial software and training for Geek Squad employees. However, in February of this year, Best Buy terminated negotiations, saying it was no longer interested in licensing the software.

The suit says that even after the termination of the agreement, Best Buy and Geek Squad continued to use Winternals software without proper licenses. U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks seemed to agree in principle with this accusation, awarding Winternals the restraining order.

"It is ordered that Best Buy Co., Best Buy Stores and Geek Squad, Inc. immediately stop pirating, using, copying and/or distributing all unlicensed versions of the Winternals software," Sparks wrote in his order. He also forbid Best Best buy from destroying any evidence related to the case.

Sparks gave Best Buy twenty days to surrender all unlicensed copies of the software to the Court.

Best Buy had not responded to a request for comment as of press time.

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