SPA Raids Long Island Firm

October 29, 1992 (Washington, DC)--The Software Publishers Association
(SPA) announced today the completion of a court ordered raid on Vicon
Industries, Inc. (Vicon) a designer and manufacturer of closed circuit TV
components, based in Melville, New York. The SPA, acting on behalf of
plaintiffs Autodesk, Inc., Cadam, Inc., Symantec, Inc., and XTree, Inc.,
cited incidents of copyright infringement.

The plaintiffs obtained an ex parte writ of seizure and temporary
restraining order from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
New York. On October 22, the plaintiffs' attorneys, accompanied by federal
marshals, paid a surprise visit to Vicon's offices in Melville, NY, and
searched the personal computers at the facility for illegal software.

The investigation of Vicon was initiated by SPA after it received
information from a former design engineer of Vicon. The information
alleged that Vicon made unauthorized copies of AutoCAD and Master
Designer, two highly specialized computer-aided design (CAD) products
published by the named plaintiffs. The information further indicated that
to make copies of Master Designer, the defendant purchased a product
specifically designed to break the copy protection device intended to
prevent the illegal copying of the product. The informant reported that
once the copy protection was broken, he was instructed by management to
make copies of both Master Designer and AutoCAD for use on the personal
computers within Vicon. The SPA raid revealed the existence of
unauthorized software published by the plaintiffs.

In announcing the raid, SPA General Counsel Ilene Rosenthal, said,
"Unauthorized copying of software in such a willful manner can not be
tolerated. We expect this action will persuade other companies to
establish procedures necessary to ensure that the software they use is
properly licensed.

Since 1988, the Software Publishers Association has initiated hundreds of
audits and lawsuits on behalf of its members and obtained numerous search
and seizure orders against businesses, computer dealers, bulletin board
services, and educational institutions that have violated its members'
copyrights. The SPA's antipiracy hotline, 1-800-388-7478, accepts calls
reporting software violations.

The Software Publishers Association also has distributed, free of charge,
self-audit materials designed to help businesses, government entities, and
educational institutions manage their internal software practices. To
obtain a copy of the SPA Self-Audit Kit and SPAudit, a software inventory
management program, please write to:

   SPAudit 
   Software Publishers Association 
   1730 M Street, NW, Suite 700 
   Washington, DC 20036

The Software Publishers Association is the principal trade association of
the personal computer software industry. Its 1000 members represent the
leading publishers in the business, consumer and education markets. The
SPA has offices in Washington, DC and Paris, France.

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