BSA agrees record €2.5m anti-piracy settlement

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has agreed to a record settlement of €2.5m with an international media firm found to have significant shortfalls in its software licences.

The media firm, which cannot be identified for legal reasons, was investigated following a criminal complaint by the BSA on behalf of Adobe, Autodesk, Avid and Microsoft.

The BSA complaint led to police raids on the company's premises last year and the freezing of its assets.

The BSA conducted a co-ordinated investigation of the organisation's international operations to identify licence compliance deficits.

An unnamed source within the organisation said: "This situation came about because we relied on a single individual to keep us compliant and manage our software assets across multiple-locations during a period of significant expansion.

"Management was shocked at the scale of the situation and recognised that this could have been avoided by having software management processes and tools in place."

As well as substantial penalties being levied to compensate for the extended period of illegal use, the company must delete all unlicensed software products and purchase the correct licences for the software it wishes to use in the future.

"This action brings the organisation into compliance with the copyright laws but at a significantly higher cost than if it had software asset management processes in place to begin with," said Robert Holleyman, president and chief executive of the BSA.

"Sadly it is the BSA's experience that companies undergoing periods of rapid growth can overlook software licensing issues. This case clearly indicates that prevention is better than cure."

As a result of its international enforcement action, the BSA reached a global settlement with the organisation and an agreement for future co-operation and audit procedures.