18 Sep 2007
An un-named global media organisation has reached a €2.5m (£1.7m) settlement with the Business Software Alliance (BSA) for neglecting to ensure it had up to date licences.
The investigation - which included raids on company premises and the freezing of its assets - was initiated by a criminal complaint made by the BSA on behalf of Adobe, Autodesk, Avid and Microsoft.
Following the settlement, the organisation has agreed to delete all unlicensed software products and buy the right licences for those it wishes to use.
A spokesman for the media group said the problems stemmed from the firm's rapid growth.
"The situation came about because we relied on a single individual to keep us compliant and manage our software assets across multiple locations during a period of significant expansion.
"The management were shocked at the scale of the situation and recognise that by having software management processes and tools in place this could have been avoided."
As the CEO of an IT asset management tool provider, I see many IT departments in fast-growing companies that push software management to the bottom of their ever-expanding 'to-do' list. These same departments often have no idea what their software licence compliance status is--mainly due to the difficulty of maintaining visibility and control of unlicensed software applications being installed by an expanding roster of employees. To remedy this situation, proactive IT departments will download an ITAM tool and in short order know where unlicensed software has been installed, and in some cases expose unused software licenses that can be reallocated to new employees. Finding an ITAM tool provides an efficient solution that is certainly much less expensive than a BSA settlement.
Posted by: Kris Barker, CEO Express Metrix 19 Sep 2007
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