The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has announced that two California engineering firms have agreed to pay a total of $132,000 to settle claims related to unlicensed copies of software programs.
DASSE Design Inc., San Francis-co, paid BSA $68,000 after an audit revealed unlicensed copies of Auto-desk, Corel and Microsoft programs.
“To those architectural and engineering firms who have experienced significant growth in the 1990s, we know from the best of intentions, a dynamic, growing firm can overlook proper software management in periods of heavy workload and expansion,” said Joe Sutton of DASSE.
Elliott Laboratories Inc., Sunny-vale, paid BSA $63,765 after a investigation uncovered more copies of Adobe and Microsoft software than the company had licenses to support.
“As a small, fast-growing company, we were remiss in allowing the development of software tracking programs to drop too low on our priority list,” said Barry Klinger, Elliot Laboratories’ CEO.
In addition, both compnaies agreed to destroy all of their unlicensed software, purchase replacement software and strengthen their software management polices.
The software situation at both companies was brought to the attention of BSA by phone calls to its anti-piracy hotline, 888-NO-PIRACY. Since 1988, BSA has been the voice of the world’s leading software developers in educating consumers on software copyright and fighting software piracy. Companies can receive a free “Guide to Software Management,” an employee training video or a software audit tool by calling the number above or visting www.nopiracy.com.
