Best Buy has a team of service people called the Geek Squad. Cool branding but it seems that they were playing a little fast and loose with some software. From the a Winternals Press Release:
Winternals Obtains Federal Court Restraining Order in Copyright Infringement Lawsuit Against Best Buy's Geek Squad
A federal judge has granted a request by Winternals Software for a temporary restraining order (TRO) requiring that Best Buy Co. and its subsidiary, Geek Squad, immediately stop using and pirating unlicensed versions of Winternals' copyrighted software.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks issued the TRO as part of a federal copyright infringement lawsuit filed April 11 by Winternals against Best Buy Co. and Geek Squad for allegedly using unlicensed software products created and marketed by Winternals, a leading provider of systems recovery and data protection solutions for computer systems.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Austin, alleges that Best Buy and Geek Squad have previously and continue to knowingly and fraudulently utilize pirated and illegal copies of Winternals' copyrighted software, including the award-winning ERD Commander 2005, a system repair and data recovery tool that boots a dead computer into a familiar Windows-like, point-and-click environment for rapid system recovery. The software helps users restore deleted data, reset passwords, copy files to and from unbootable systems, edit the registry, and access Restore Points on a dead Windows computer.
A bit more:
In an 18-page lawsuit, Winternals claims that officials for Best Buy and Geek Squad contacted Winternals in October 2005 to inquire about purchasing a license that would allow their employees to use Winternals' software in performing their jobs. Winternals entered into negotiations with Best Buy and Geek Squad in an effort to reach a licensing agreement which would have covered most of Geek Squad's estimated 12,000 employees at a cost of several million dollars, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that during the next three months, Winternals and the defendants entered into a trial-and-test agreement in which Winternals provided Geek Squad with trial versions of its software and provided training to many Geek Squad employees. The complaint contends that in February 2006, defendants abruptly informed Winternals that they were no longer interested in pursuing a licensing agreement. However, the lawsuit claims that Geek Squad employees continued to use Winternals' software in violation of the U.S. Copyright Act.
The complaint also alleges that, "at these training sessions, certain employees of Defendants approached Winternals' representatives and stated that many of Defendants' employees were very familiar with The Winternals Software and, in fact, had already been using The Winternals Software to repair malfunctioning and "dead" computers of Defendants' customers for some time without a license. These employees expressed that they were glad to see the Defendants finally coming into compliance with Winternals by seeking a license to The Winternals Software."
Winternals is the for-profit face of Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell who also host the most excellent website Sysinternals Sysinternals publishes cheap or free invaluable little system hacks while Winternals has everything wrapped up in a fancy big bow and comes with unbelievable corporate support. (at a price to match) I never liked Best Buy that much -- their name is a lie as they have a few "popular" items at discount but the majority of their bread and butter items are at MSRP. Also, if you buy anything more complex than a microwave, they are downright predatory when it comes to selling you the special extended warranty. Good to see that they are getting called on this -- Mark and Bryce do not deserve being screwed over.
