Symantec wins $3.1 million default judgment
Symantec said Wednesday that it has been granted a $3.1 million default judgment in its California lawsuit against an accused software pirate.
In April of 2004, Symantec charged that Sam Jain and several co-defendants created fake pop-up ads telling consumers that their Symantec software was preparing to expire and needed to be renewed. People who fell for the trick were sent to a Web site selling pirated versions of the Symantec’s Norton SystemWorks, Norton AntiVirus, Norton Ghost and PC Anywhere products. Symantec also alleged that Jain and his co-defendants sent thousands of spam email messages offering the pirated copies of Symantec’s products.
What will the effect of this lawsuit be? Likely nothing. Default judgments happen when the Defendant does not care enough to show up, has not been properly served, or is indisposed. My guess is that Mr. Jain is “judgment-proof”, that is, he does not have enough assets to really be worth suing. Symantec has spent several thousand dollars in order to get a judge to declare that Mr. Jain owes Symantec $3.1 million, but they have no real way to collect that sum.
Why would I say this? Because of failed Internet marketing start-up eFront.com. eFront was fronted (pun fully intended) by Sam Jain. Now, I have not seen the service of process documents from the Symantec case, but color me just cynical enough to think that we’re talking about the same Sam Jain. Given the nature of the acts alleged and the spectacular failure of eFront, it’s not a difficult leap to make to find that Mr. Jain is having financial problems.
If you are Symantec, what do you hope for? At this point, perhaps you hope for an agreement not to collect if Mr. Jain will find another line of work.
One can always hope.
MickC @ April 20, 2005