BSA offers truce to businesses

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has offered a truce to British businesses that will protect them from prosecution should they be found using illegal software.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has offered a truce to British businesses that will protect them from prosecution should they be found using illegal software.

Starting in mid-March, the BSA will mail 25,000 companies and ask them to register on its website, www.bsatruce.com, where they can use the BSA's audit tool and other services, including a guide to software management, free of charge. As part of the programme, the BSA will not prosecute a firm found to be using illegal software in the first 30 days after registering.

The move will be seen as a toning down of the BSA's approach to tackling illegal software, which the organisation claimed represents 30 per cent of all software used in the UK. The BSA has been criticised by organisations including the Federation of Small Business and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), as well as users and resellers, for its intimidating manner.

Last June the BSA was ordered by the ASA to tone down its standard letter to businesses, after it was deemed intimidating.

However, Mike Newton, campaign manager at the BSA, denied the truce amounted to a climbdown. "For two years we have taken an upfront approach to bring this issue to attention. There was a huge amount of complacency and that is now declining," said Newton.

Newton said the truce recognised that some of the illegal software in use was a result of poor systems management, rather than deliberate theft.

He said that the campaign would target SMEs and "vulnerable" vertical markets. The BSA was also looking for help from channel partners in generating leads, an area in which it would be "redoubling its efforts" to catch offenders, he said.

Julia Phillpot, anti-piracy manager at Microsoft, a BSA member, admitted that previous BSA campaigns have received mixed feedback. "It's important that we recognise that feedback, but we also need to recognise there is a problem with piracy," she said.

Phillpot said Microsoft was stepping up its own efforts in the battle against piracy. The software giant has established a free anti-piracy hotline and has hired a team of piracy experts to follow leads. It has also joined cross-industry body the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, and has introduced additional security features into Windows 2000, including BIOS locking and holograms on the CDs, which make them harder to copy.