What are the business risks of using illegal software?

It is the legal responsibility of all business owners to ensure the software their employees use is licensed. If you think that your company is using unlicensed software or you know of another company that is, you need to act now.

Turning a blind eye is not an excuse and the risks of running unlicensed software in any business are serious:

Legal and financial penalties: If your company is found guilty of breaching the terms of a software license, it is infringing copyright and breaking the law. As a result, it could incur severe legal and financial penalties.
Risk to your business: Your IT network is much more vulnerable to virus attacks and technical failure if you’re running unlicensed software. In fact, IDC research has found that pirated software has a one in two chance of containing additional code such as Trojans, viruses or spyware*.
Damage to reputation: No-one wants to do business with a partner who’s known for cutting corners or doing things on the cheap.

Get the facts

Unlicensed software with a commercial value of £1 billion was installed in the UK in 2009**.
BSA launched successful cases against well over a hundred UK companies in 2009, resulting in a cost to these businesses of over £2 million.

*Source: IDC "The Risks of Obtaining and Using Pirated Software" study, 2006.

** BSA/IDC Global Software Piracy study, released 11 May 2010.