Florida Woman Gets Prison Time for Microsoft Product Key Resale Scheme
TL;DR
A Florida woman was sentenced to 22 months in prison for illegally reselling Microsoft product keys through her company, Trinity Software Distribution, after sourcing unauthorized labels from various sources.
Source: PCMag
A Florida woman is facing time behind bars for harvesting Microsoft product key codes and reselling them at lower prices. On Mar. 3 the Justice Department announced 52-year-old Heidi Richards had been sentenced to 22 months in prison for selling the unauthorized product key codes through her e-commerce company, Trinity Software Distribution. Richards trafficked in Microsoft certificate of authenticity (COA) labels, which are typically found on software product boxes. The labels can also contain a product key to activate the software, such as Windows, making them quite valuable to illicit resellers. According to the unsealed indictment, Richards sourced unauthorized COA labels from “a variety of sources in and outside of the U.S.." Full Story