SIIA Records Over $1 Million in Software Piracy Settlements in December 2006

SIIA Records Over $1 Million in Software Piracy Settlements in December 2006

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital information industry, announced today that it received over $1 million in software piracy settlements in eleven cases in December 2006. In addition to paying the settlement amounts, the companies agreed to delete any unlicensed copies, purchase the necessary replacement software, adopt and implement software management policies and agree to future compliance audits. These settlements serve as a reminder to companies, large and small, to implement good software compliance practices to ensure the use of only fully licensed software.

“The volume of settlements this past December shows that there are still many companies that do not have adequate software compliance practices in place and that many businesses need to be more vigilant about ensuring proper software use,” said Keith Kupferschmid, SIIA’s Vice President Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement. “Businesses should know that using fully licensed software is part of their corporate responsibility and know that they are liable if they do not.” He added that “while the settlements may seem somewhat large, in fact, the eleven companies would have incurred significantly more expenses had they not been cooperative with SIIA’s investigation.”

Some of SIIA’s December settlements in the Corporate software anti-piracy program included copyright infringement settlements with Petroleum Heat and Power Corp., Preventative Maintenance Company, Inc. and Ciberlynx Inc. (For more information about this program go to http://www.siia.net/piracy/corporate.asp)

Petroleum Heat & Power Corporation is located in Stamford, CT and is owned by Star Gas Partners. Petroleum Heat is a distributor of home heating oil, heating and cooling equipment and maintenance. After being contacted by SIIA about a report of unlicensed software, Petroleum Heat cooperated with SIIA by conducting an audit and negotiated a settlement of $217,570. Petroleum Heat paid a penalty of 2.5 times the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price of the illegal Microsoft software installed on their systems. Preventative Maintenance Company, Inc., an Illinois company, also settled copyright claims with SIIA during December 2006. PMCI was founded in 1970 and provides predictive technology including vibration and infrared analysis of machinery. Sources reported that PMCI was installing software on company computers without regard to the number of licenses that the company owned. PMCI also cooperated with SIIA and settled for $156,137.70 based on the unlicensed software on their systems published by Adobe, Microsoft, Nero and Symantec. Ciberlynx was a web hosting company located in Deerfield Beach, FL. It was contacted by SIIA after two separate sources provided corroborating evidence that Ciberlynx did not possess enough licenses to support their software use. SIIA settled its copyright infringement claims with Ciberlynx in December 2006 after the company paid damages of $130,000 based on their possession of multiple unlicensed software titles published by Adobe, Microsoft and Symantec. SIIA will use the settlements to fund further anti-piracy education efforts and enforcement work. Confidential reports of suspected software piracy can be made online at http://www.siia.net/piracy/report.asp or by calling +1 800.388.7478.

SIIA recommends that all organizations have comprehensive software compliance policies in place, which include systematic software audits. Software piracy can result in fines of up to $150,000 for each software title copied. SIIA offers free software audit tools at http://www.siia.net/piracy/audit.asp.

About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to more than 800 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit http://www.siia.net/.

About SIIA Anti-Piracy

The Software & Information Industry Association’s Anti-Piracy Division conducts a comprehensive, industry-wide campaign to fight software and content piracy. The pro-active campaign is premised on the notion that one must balance enforcement with education in order to be effective.