Microsoft today accused UK high street retailer Comet of selling more than 94,000 sets of counterfeit Windows Vista and Windows XP recovery CDs.
The software company claims that Comet, owned by European electrical retail group Kesa, made the counterfeits at a factory in Hampshire, UK and sold them from its stores.
“Comet’s actions were unfair to customers. We expect better from retailers of Microsoft products — and our customers deserve better, too,” said David Finn, Microsoft’s associate general counsel, worldwide anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting in a statement.
In response, Comet said that it understood that producing recovery discs did not infringe Microsoft’s IP rights and would defend its position “vigorously”.
It said it acted in customers’ best interests: “[Comet] believes its customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery discs with each new Microsoft Operating System based computer.”
Kesa, whose shares fell nearly 5% today, has plans to sell Comet.