Four individuals in China have been placed in prison for four years and was told to pay about $1.6 million in fines for selling illegal copies of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system.  “It shows the government is really taking action,” stated Microsoft China VP Liu Fengming.

Hong Lei and Sun Xiansheng were among those that were charged.  These two ran a business called Tomato Garden which sold the illegal copies of XP.  Hong and Sun were both charged $146,000 each and the two others in the case were charged $14,600 each.

The Huqin District People’s Court in Suzhou also charged Tomato Garden about $1.3 million and confiscated about $439,000 of their revenue.