Police on Friday confiscated 190 pirated copies of Microsoft's Office 2003 productivity software in Cologne, Germany, after the U.S. software company had lodged a criminal complaint the day before.
A 24-year-old man and his 20-year-old girlfriend were arrested, Microsoft said in a statement.
In connection with these two people, police conducted eight additional searches in Cologne as well as nearby Aachen and Hilden. All three cities are located in the populous state of North Rhine Westphalia.
The software pirates were discovered after Microsoft conducted a test purchase of products being sold at suspiciously low prices on eBay's online auction site in Germany, according to Thomas Baumgärtner, a spokesman at Microsoft Deutschland, in Unterschleissheim, near Munich.
"We cooperate closely with eBay to monitor pirated products," Baumgärtner said. "We're keeping a close eye on this development."
The product imitations seized in Cologne looked "astonishingly genuine, especially the hologram on the CD," Baumgärtner said. Even though the hologram on the pirated software was stamped onto the CD as a label -- and not burned as it is on original discs -- it was sealed with a clear lacquer to make it look authentic to the untrained eye, he said.
Microsoft suspects the pirated software confiscated in Germany is the work of professionals, possibly located in Asia. "We can't say for sure but have our reasons to believe so," Baumgärtner said.
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