The Business Software Alliance is to receive a record out-of-court settlement from a British company which used unlicensed software.
The record payment — £250,000 — dwarfs previous settlements, which averaged £10,000 last year.
In this latest case, announced on Thursday, the company guilty of software-licence infringement is "a major UK firm in the infrastructure and public-services sector". The Business Software Alliance (BSA) would not reveal details of who the perpetrator is, saying only that the company "cannot be named for legal reasons".
According to the BSA, the £250,000 will be paid by the company in one lump sum.
Competition
Blogger at Large
The deadline's fast approaching on our contest to win a trip to San Francisco and a Centrino Pro laptop to blog from the Intel Developer Forum. To enter, just start posting entries to our On the Road group blog.
The company was found to be using unlicensed copies of Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft software on hundreds of PCs across several different sites, the BSA said in a statement.
An investigation into the company began in October 2006. The settlement was agreed in May.
"The size of the settlement is a reflection of the serious nature and scale of unlicensed software use at this company," said Sarah Coombes, director of legal affairs EMEA at the BSA.
The BSA believes that illegal software use is a large problem in the UK. The rate of unlicensed software use in the UK runs consistently at around 27 percent, the BSA said, and it is currently investigating a large number of companies over suspected unlicensed software use.
Microsoft is one company that works very closely with the BSA and last year it said it was changing the way its software licensing worked because of the high rate of illegal use of software like Office. The company said then that as many as a third of Office packages could be unlicensed.
Talkback
I'm confused here. If BSA sue, what gives them the legal right to demand payment from someone for their unlicensed use of another company's software? Have Microsoft, Adobe, etc sold the rights to their software to the BSA? What's to stop Microsoft suing this company as well - they are legally the wronged party. The BSA 'fine' just sounds like protection money.
Also, use of software is covered by contract law not criminal law - if you use an unlicensed copy you can be sued, not prosecuted. A fine is a criminal penalty. So this was not a fine. Ok it was an out of court settlement. But if the court case had gone to completion, and BSA had won, they would be awarded damages, not a fine. Mind you it's hard to see how BSA had suffered financially, and therefore what damages they really should get.
Or do BSA pay their 'fine' to Microsoft, Adobe etc?
Yes, it is confusing and your points are essentially correct. The BSA is an independent organisation and not a company and you are right that it has no legal right to sue anybody. Instead it works with, and has the co-operation of, software vendors on whose behalf it was set up in the first place.
When the BSA is made aware of a possible infringement of software copyright, especially a large one, it will launch an investigation. This begins as a result of the BSA receiving inside information from somebody working at a company where they know software is being used without the proper licenses being obtained and fees being paid.
There are now laws governing infringement of copyright of software. These are civil law cases - you are perfectly correct - and not criminal ones. No-one is going to jail. However, fines - strictly speaking, damages - are payable. They can be enormous as in this unique case. The BSA will require the companies caught in this way to pay up but the money will go to the software vendors who have been cheated of the payments.
Can companies and individuals refuse to pay? Yes, they can and they do. These cases will often be kept quiet by the BSA and the vendors for obvious reasons. They would much rather show people being caught and fined than show them getting away with using software without the correct licensing in place. However, the laws introduced around areas like copyright do make it more difficult for people and companies to avoid legal proceedings.
Apologies if my loose use of legal terminology created any confusion here.
Colin Barker