Almost one in five UK company directors do not take
responsibility for thelegitimacy of software in their
business, research has revealed.
A study commissioned by the
UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) found that 18% of
directors did not know whether software licences were checked.
Twenty four per cent of directors surveyed said
software licence checks were carried out less than once a
year.
John Lovelock, chief executive of the Federation Against
Software Theft and Investors in Softwarewelcomed the report.
"This report confirms that the issue of under or indeed
over-licensing is of major concern not only to the software
industry, but to business in general," he said.
According to the report, just over half of the 1,000 respondents
were not in touch with whether their business software was properly
licensed.
Thirty three per cent said they did not know how often their
organisation carried out checks, and 19% said checks were carried
out less than once a year.
Lovelock said the study was prompted by lobbying within the IPO
by the IP Crime Group for independent research to draw attention
from the government to IP theft.
"Government now has to sit up and listen and respond
accordingly," he said.
The study, which looked at all intellectual property
infringement in the workplace, found many UK companies do not have
processes or policies in place to control intellectual property
theft.
Some 28% of respondents said their company did not have any
formal policy on downloading digital content from the internet.
Only 45% said there was a formal policy in place to forbid
illegal activity and 7% said they were aware copyrighted material
was copied at work.