The Europe-wide campaign will see the alliance make contact with some 30,000 training organisations across the continent. The BSA says it intends to make these companies use copyright compliant software and that it will prosecute those that do not pay the appropriate licensing fees.
The campaign is not intended to cast aspersions on all training providers per se, said Julian McMenamin, chairman of the BSA in Ireland, who admitted that in some cases, organisations use incorrectly licensed software because of misunderstandings.
McMenamin says that the BSA is primarily targeting ‘blatant use of illegal software’.
He told ComputerScope: ‘The BSA’s experience of markets outside Ireland showed issues around unlicensed software in the training sector. It would be our belief that there are issues around this in Ireland too.’
He confirmed that the software watchdog has received tip-offs reporting licensing irregularities in some Irish training firms.
End-users of training courses would benefit from the campaign, McMenamin claims, as pirated software is often out of date.
‘If it’s not the latest version of the software, you’ll get left behind,’ he said.
In addition, McMenamin claimed that that illegal software can be more vulnerable to viruses and that proper licensing assures customers that a training provider has the software developers’ support.
The BSA chairman advised those seeking training to look for some indication that a training organisation is officially recognised to offer courses on a particular product.
‘Provided the accreditation is genuine, then it is reasonable to assume that the software they use is above board,’ he said, ‘But, for every one company [so accredited] in Ireland, there are five or six who are not. That would be my estimation.’
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