Piracy crackdown nabs 41 Glasgow firms

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Some 41 Glasgow firms are under investigation by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) for copyright abuse following a licensing campaign last year.

The BSA ran a targeted programme in November in Glasgow - the UK's second worst city for software piracy after London. During the 30 day programme, the BSA offered amnesty to any firm which wanted to check the licensing of its software.

Julie Strawson, the body's UK committee chair, said several hundred companies took part - about a quarter of the firms targeted by the BSA, the membership of which is made up of software vendors.

The body also promoted its online piracy reporting service, which saw a twenty-fold increase in reporting compared to last year. Out of some 60 firms reported, 41 were found to have illegal software on their systems.

The firms face legal action from the BSA if they can't prove their compliance or don't pay up for the licensing. If the BSA wins the civil court case, firms not only have to pay for the software, but they may face additional damages as well. Strawson added that if company directors are aware of the piracy and responsible for it, they could face prison.

However, Strawson stressed that any company without fully-legal software shouldn't panic. "No vendor is going to take action against anyone who voluntary contacts them," she said.

"We're often seen as the software police - that's not what we're about," she added. "What we want to do is educate people."

Pirated software brings business risks, Strawson said, adding that a third of counterfeit software has malware or spyware. "Buying online pirated software might reduce costs initially, but long-term the costs are high," she said.

Such illegal software also hurts the local economy, Strawson said, it also leads to training and support not being purchased. "Software is a product which needs to be protected by law and businesses get more from software by investing in bona-fide software," she said.

Local government leaders agreed. Mohammad Sarwar, MP for Glasgow Central, said: "Glasgow's poor software piracy record threatens the city's economic stability as well as damaging its reputation... The implications of software piracy in Glasgow are far reaching, especially for companies in the IT sector, and I strongly urge businesses to continue to place software asset management at the top of their list of priorities for 2008."

The next city to see the thirty-day amnesty programme will be Manchester later this year.

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