BRAZILIAN AD AGENCY SLAPPED FOR SOFTWARE PIRACY
By Adnews Staff
A civil trial court in Rio de Janeiro last week ordered ARTPLAN Comunicacao S/A to pay damages of a sum equivalent to US $65 million after pirated software was found to be in use on the ad agency's computers. The suit was brought by the US-based Business Software Alliance, an anti-piracy software industry organization whose members include Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk and Symantec, among others. BSA filed a petition to inspect ARTPLAN's offices with the Brazilian authorities earlier this year after a whistleblower called the BSA's piracy reporting hotline. The inspection in March of 82 ARTPLAN computers revealed 382 pirated programs. The damages awarded are equal to 500 times the value of the software illegally in use. According to a Price Waterhouse study, 62% of all software used in Brazil is pirated.