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.”