Recent years have seen an uptick in software audits, with more companies being asked to provide evidence of licensing compliance. This is largely due to the fact that organizations are now using more software than ever before, with an increasing number of employees working remotely.

Watchdog groups like the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Federation of Software Theft (FAST) serve the sole purpose of ensuring the protection of software vendors’ intellectual property. These groups and software vendors are dedicated to discovering and auditing non-compliant organizations every single day with little to no notice. According to Gartner, the likelihood of an assessment for a medium to a large firm over the next two years is predicted to be 40%, which is expected to rise by 20% annually.

But why do software vendors act in this manner? Simply put, the main motivator is money. Revenue from software sales fell when the American economy saw a downturn and software expenditures were slashed. Software vendors were forced to hunt for alternative income sources when these profits started to decline. Audit fines and penalties of several hundred thousand dollars to even millions of dollars appeared as lucrative options for these vendors.

According to the BSA, 25% of businesses that operate in the U.S. are non-compliant in some way, costing software vendors an estimated $6 billion in loss.

ANTI-SOFTWARE PIRACY group the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) plans to step up its campaign against the use of unlicensed software by demanding money for what it calls “historic illegal use”.

The organisation, no doubt with one eye on the impact of cloud computing on its nice little earner, claimed that it has historically focused on educating companies about software use.

The audits it has conducted, meanwhile, have focused more on ‘accidental’ licence misuse, but FAST explained that companies are getting cheekier.

“In recent years there has been a very clear move by the global software industry to take a new approach to address the growing issue of unintentional piracy as a result of unpaid licences in business,” said Alex Hilton, CEO of FAST.

“But as we have seen there is still a huge number of determined individuals trying to avoid the costs of correctly licensed software. As a result, we have announced that FAST will no longer act to just recoup the losses suffered by our members and will also recover money for historic illegal use.

“That means we will no longer go after infringers solely for the cost of new software licences. We will now act retrospectively and that means a far greater financial impact.

“We’ve heard of examples where junior IT staff are forced to mislead vendors or auditors only to later become the whistleblowers. This is nothing short of a fraudulent management mindset and we are determined to stamp out intentional software misuse.”

FAST general counsel Julian Heathcote Hobbins promised to deploy FAST’s “traditional tools, such as civil lawsuits” to teach the software pirates a lesson they won’t forget.

The group will also pass the details to national law enforcement agencies, which always like some easy cases to help them reach their targets, to consider for criminal prosecution.

FAST claimed in a recent report that the commercial value of unlicensed software in the UK is the second highest in Europe with a piracy rate of 22 per cent.