August 22, 1996 Dear Internet Service Provider, I am writing on behalf of the Software Publishers Association (SPA), which is the principal trade group of the PC software industry. Many of our more than 1,200 member companies look to the SPA to help stop the unauthorized distribution of their products. As you may be aware, the SPA has taken a leading role in pursuing software pirates. As an expansion of its more traditional activities, we are now tracking software pirates across the Internet. As part of that expansion, we have recently filed suit against an individual for distributing unauthorized software over the Net and are planning additional actions. A copy of that press release follows. The action of Max Butler, the defendant, came to our attention from an ISP located in Colorado. The ISP was quite helpful in assisting SPA with the investigation and we look forward to working more closely with them, and others, in the coming months. This brings me to the point of this letter. We are writing this letter in an attempt to foster a close working relationship with ISPs to show software pirates that the entire software industry is behind eliminating blatant piracy across the Internet. Our experience in working with the ISP above, and from the information we have garnered through our own efforts have shown there is a great deal we can do together in a concentrated effort to stem software piracy. We would like you to forward information on users uploading and/or distributing pirated software across your service. (Enclosed is a list of Seven Warning Signs of Piracy which will aid you in monitoring infringing activity.) Information such as the logs and actual user names and contact information (including a real email or snail address) would be most helpful. By our receiving this information, SPA can, with your continued assistance, pursue those individuals or entities committing copyright infringement. We also understand that you may have concerns with sharing this information with SPA. As such, we will to the extent possible, not inform the target how the information came to us. I am asking you to appoint a contact person to this effort. We are seeking a name and email address to inform you and other ISPs of words and or sites associated with the use of pirated software, and at the same time provide you a contact at our end to discuss matters that affect all of us. I appreciate your taking the time to review this letter and further express SPAšs desire to work cooperatively with you. For more information, please visit our web site (www.spa.org) which contains pages expressly created to foster this relationship. Sincerely, Sandra Sellers Vice President of Intellectual Property Education and Enforcement P.S. We have set up a special email address for you to forward information.