Software vendor representative body BSA The Software Alliance has awarded an informant $20,000 for dobbing in a West Australian metalwork company for using pirated software.
The company was forced to pay $100,000 for the software, as well as purchase legitimate copies of the software licenses from Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft. The company was not named.
Last month, BSA quadrupled the maximum incentive for people to report the use of unlicensed software by Australian businesses from $5,000 to $20,000. This was the first informant to recieve the $20,000 maximum incentive.
Western Australia was hit with a third of the 15 piracy cases settled by BSA in 2015. According to BSA, the majority of offenders were manufacturing companies.
“While some businesses think they can save money and fly under the radar by using unlicensed software, the reality is they fail to consider the larger financial and reputational risks,” said BSA senior director for compliance programs Roland Chan.
“We urge all businesses, whether large or small, to conduct regular audits of software licenses and deployments, and implement an effective Software Asset Management (SAM) practice.”
BSA represents software vendors in copyright infringement cases. Its other noteable members include Apple, Cisco, IBM and Oracle.
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