A court in southern China conv The men were sentenced by a court in the city of Shenzhen to between one-and-a-half to six-and-a-half years in prison, according to court papers released late Wednesday. Microsoft applauded the sentence in a statement released late Wednesday Beijing time, saying they were the stiffest sentences ever handed down in this type of Chinese copyright infringement case. Microsoft has called the group part of “the biggest software counterfeiting organization we have ever seen, by far” and estimated its global sales at more than $2 billion.