Posted: Aug. 26, 2008

Two Wisconsin companies have settled software piracy claims by paying a total of $145,000 to the Business Software Alliance, a trade group representing the commercial software industry, the organization announced Monday.

Madison-based Total Administrative Services Corp., which offers third-party administrative support for employee benefit programs, paid $95,000 for having unlicensed copies of Adobe, Microsoft and Symantec products on its computers. Chief Executive Officer Dan Rashke estimated that his company was missing licenses on about 45 copies of those programs.

Rashke said Total Administrative Services, which has about 350 employees, acted after it was contacted by the alliance. An internal audit showed the company was short on licenses.

“We immediately got ourselves in compliance,” Rashke said. Though he was “disappointed” about the group’s pursuit of legal action, he said, “we do take it seriously and we need to address it.”

Milwaukee-based Argus Technical Services, a technical staffing service, paid the organization $50,000 for having unlicensed copies of Microsoft Office on its computers.

Argus has 330 employees. About 30 of them work directly for Argus and have company computers, said Bruce Chesshire, the company’s lawyer. Argus places the other workers at companies with positions in areas such as engineering, IT and maintenance.

Both companies reached settlements with the Washington-based software alliance in December. Jenny Blank, senior director of legal affairs for the group, said settlement money is used for the group’s educational and enforcement efforts.

As with most of its cases, Blank said, the group looked into the two Wisconsin companies after receiving tips from workers. Tipsters can receive a reward if a settlement is made, and the group gets about 3,000 reports a year about software piracy.

“For companies that want to avoid trouble, the first step is to get it on their radar,” she said. “A lot of companies don’t have this on their corporate checklist.”