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A stock brokerage firm and two mortgage companies have agree to pay a total of more than US$420,000 to settle claims that they had unlicensed software on their computers, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) announced Tuesday.
The settlements with the three companies also requires them to delete all unlicensed copies of software installed on their computers, acquire any needed licenses and implement stronger software licensing management practices, the BSA said in a news release.
Brokerage firm IBG of Chicago agreed to pay $175,000 to settle claims that it was using unlicensed copies of Microsoft and Symantec software, BSA said. American Mortgage Consultants of Liberty, Illinois, paid $136,750 to settle claims that it had fewer licenses than it had copies of Adobe and Microsoft software on its computers. NovaStar Mortgage of Kansas City, Missouri, paid $112,000 to settle claims that it had unlicensed copies of Adobe, Autodesk and Symantec software on its computers.
Software piracy cost Illinois 5,000 jobs and Missouri 2,000 jobs in 2003, according to a BSA study.
Representatives of none of the three companies responded immediately to a request for comments.
"American Mortgage Consultants regrets that this situation arose," David Leahy, the company's CEO said in the BSA news release. "There has now been a change in the management team and AMC is therefore confident that this matter is behind it."
BSA, a trade group representing several IT vendors, said it is committed to enforcing its members copyrights. "We wish it weren't necessary, but enforcing copyrights has proven to be the best way to encourage businesses to review their installed software and take any steps necessary to become compliant," Jenny Blank, BSA's senior director of legal affairs, said in a statement.
Businesses trying to determine whether their organization is using unlicensed software can download software audit tools from the BSA Web site at bsaaudit.com.
BSA offers rewards of up to $1 million for confidential reports of unlicensed software use. Actual rewards are usually much smaller.
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