Price’s Candles, a candle manufacturing company based in London
settled for the sum of £9,500, The Trafford Centre, a Manchester
retail and leisure complex settled for an undisclosed sum,
Bousfield Heatons Limited a printing chemicals manufacturer settled
for £65,000, Online Travel Corporation plc settled for £40,000 and
Gloucester City Council for £12,000.
However, five of the named companies, Baines & Ernst
Financial Management, Climax Development video game developer,
Claranet Limited ISP, Hussman Europe Limited supplier to commercial
food industry and Learoyd Packaging, are being sued by the BSA for
use of unlicensed software.
The BSA says that it is currently investigating more than 300 UK
organisations for suspected software piracy in an attempt to clean
up UK industry, in all sectors. The group estimates that the
greatest financial losses from software piracy are due to
businesses and organisations which illegally copy software or have
not bought enough licenses for the software they use. Software
piracy in 2000 was estimated by the BSA to have generated losses of
$11.8 billion worldwide, $3.1 billion of which originated from
Western Europe. The BSA hopes to minimise what it describes as the
“huge lost opportunity for job creation and public tax
contributions” by strictly applying enforcement procedures. BSA’s
campaign relations manager stated, “Ignorance is no defence in the
eyes of the law, we believe that half of the £350m lost to
unlicensed software is done unwittingly, but we have to stop this
problem.”
The BSA offers a reward of up to £10,000 for information
relating to such infringements and often, tip offs arise from
present or former employees. In light of this, Simon Moores,
chairman of the Microsoft users forum recommends performing
software audits and ensuring licences are up to date and sounds a
warning to complacent businesses, “ I doubt if any company in the
UK can guarantee that they are 100% compliant in every
respect.”
