Microsoft has filed 21 lawsuits in US Federal courts as part of an effort to stop those who continually pirate its software.

The suits span 14 states and target people and businesses that have allegedly sold pirated copies of Microsoft software.

Eight of the suits target companies that Microsoft refers to as “repeat offender software pirates”. The eight firms had already been sued by Microsoft for selling counterfeit software.

Several of the suits also address pirated software pre-loaded onto PCs and then sold as bundled software, a process known as hard-disk loading.