Based on agreement, prisoner between BSA|The Software Alliance – organization, representing the interests of software manufacturers and other companies from eastern Poland, several businesses were charged with using illegal software and were ordered to pay a total 1 million dollars in compensation.
The concluded agreement covers more than 200 illegal programs, that were installed on company computers.
“These high compensation for software copyright infringement in Poland should be a warning to all companies, who decide to use software in violation of licenses” ,- said lawyer Pavel Savitsky, representing BSA|The Software Alliance.
Among the affected software manufacturers are well-known developers, in particular: Autodesk, Microsoft and Siemens. Their copyright claims stem from local law “About copyright and related rights”. As Alexander Vituki rightly notes, BSA representative|The Software Alliance в Польше:
“Software piracy, considering non-taxation, is a negative phenomenon from a financial point of view. It weakens the economy, including the process of creating new jobs. From a study published several years ago, conducted by INSEAD Business School, one of the leading business schools in the world, shown, that a 1 percent increase in the use of licensed software would bring the national economy more 2 billion. PLN”.
It is worth recalling, that the use of unlicensed software by entrepreneurs carries a risk of legal and financial liability, as well as a threat to IT security. The amount of compensation is established for the violating enterprise by law, and BSA should be a kind of warning to other companies, practicing the use of pirated software.
