|
The chairman of BSA in Ireland, Julian McMenamin, told ElectricNews.Net that a number of organisations were currently under investigation and in several cases this could lead to raids being conducted in conjunction with the Gardai.
"Raids are used by the BSA only as a last resort and are done when a business is either not co-operating with us or when we have reason to believe that there has been a major incident of illegal software infringement," he commented.
The BSA, which describes itself as an industry watchdog representing the world's leading software developers, has already carried out a raid on an Irish business during 2001 when it took action against a Dublin-based architect's firm. The company in question had to pay a substantial fine following the raid on its premises.
In recent years, stiffer penalties have been introduced to punish businesses engaged in software piracy with the company's directors facing fines of up to IEP100,000 or five years in jail.
In August, the BSA also issued court summonses to six companies in Ireland as part of its crackdown on software piracy. These organisations included Unison, Usit, Ultragraphics, Data Exchange, Irish Microfilm and Byrne Looby partners trading as Alpha Engineering.
Although Irish businesses have a reputation for being among the worst offenders when it comes to the illegal use of software, McMenamin said that the situation is improving. "A few years ago in Ireland around 70 percent of all software used in businesses was pirated, but that rate has now fallen to 41 percent. This is still not acceptable, but is getting better," said McMenamin, who is also county manager for software company Symantec.
McMenamin's comments follow the news that the BSA and local law enforcement agencies had raided businesses in Holland, Poland and Israel. Among the companies visited were Web sites www.silver-cd.com and www.Iraelpc.net. In the case of www.silver-cd.com, BSA said that it found 460 illegal compilation CDs and other illegal material in the premises of the Dutch-based "pirate site."
The BSA also raided the offices of another major Israeli-based "pirate Web site." According to the BSA, the multiple page site offered a large range of pirated materials including downloads, information about other pirate sites, pirate forums and chat groups. The BSA said it estimated that damages were in the range of several hundred thousand US dollars.
However, despite BSA's actions and the tougher punishments, a survey carried out for the Alliance has shown that one third of employees and management in European SMEs were not aware that software downloaded from the Internet could be illegal.
"More and more people are buying and downloading software from the Internet for business purposes," said Beth Scott, vice president of BSA Europe, in a statement. "We encourage this growth and are fully behind the development of this convenient method of purchasing software. However, while company principals are often aware of approved, fully legal sites for these purchases, employees may not be. Companies principles therefore need to safeguard themselves against illegal software being installed on their systems."
Scott added that it was crucial for management within companies to introduce guidelines in regard to employees downloading software for the Net.
Scott also said that while the survey had also found that SMEs understand the serious nature of Internet piracy, they have taken "little action," such as adopting a software policy or carrying out regular software audits, to ensure illegal software is not being used in their companies.
BSA Ireland members include, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Macromedia, Microsoft, Priority Data Group and Symantec and the organisation can be found at http://www.bsa.org/ireland.
|
