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Around the time that Script was launching CarderPlanet in Odessa, researchers at the software giant Autodesk in San Rafael, California, decided it was time to contact the FBI. Thè largest global manufacturer of 2D and 3D modelling software, Autodesk sell its products across the world to architects, designers, town planners, model-makers, mortgage brokers, vehicle manufacturers - well, they are even the chosen suppliers of software to Scunthorpe’s firm of chemical engineers, Grimley Smith Associates.

Specialist software like this does not come cheap. Single licences for Autodesk’s professional CAD programs range between $3,000 and $7,000, reflecting the huge amounts invested in the research and development of the product.

In 2002 the company’s Piracy Protection Unit noticed that a seller in the Ukraine was offering brand-new versions of one of Autodesk’s design programs on eBay for a bargain $200, when in the shops exactly the same product was retailing at $3,500. ‘Hmm,’ they thought, ‘some- thing’s not right here!’

Silicon Valley suffers from the same problem as the Hollywood studios. The making of motion pictures often involves resources compa- rable to those required in the development of complex software programs. As production costs rise, the emergence of a global network of counterfeit DVD manufacturers, frequently linked to organised-crime syndicates, has reduced revenues from movies. This is especially true in a recession - if you have a choice between spending $15 to watch a film in a theatre or seeing it on a perfect DVD copy for $1, two months before it is even released to cinemas, the latter course is hard to resist.