Cracked software looks free. In practice it is one of the most expensive decisions a company can make, as the court cases in ITCA’s Case Law Library show. These are the risks, with real outcomes.
1. Damages at the full license price, or more
Courts value each unlicensed copy at what the license would have cost, and sometimes at a multiple of it. The Court of Venice set damages at €100,000 per illegal copy of VISI. A Lisbon court ordered a furniture maker to pay €328,950 for five copies of ALPHACAM; the company is now insolvent. A Brazilian appeals court awarded Autodesk ten times the license value.
2. Personal liability for directors and employers
Blaming an employee does not work. The Malaysian Court of Appeal held a company liable for software an employee installed. In Canada, the Federal Court held a company director personally liable, and a writ was issued to seize his property.
3. Criminal charges
Software piracy can be a crime. A Milan court sentenced an individual to nine months in prison for copying 3D printing software at work. In India, a company director was jailed, and in Vietnam police opened the country’s first criminal case over unlicensed business software.
4. Court orders that stop your work
Courts can order a company to stop using the software immediately and to preserve its computers as evidence, as the Delhi High Court did against a cleantech firm. For a design or engineering firm, losing its main tool in the middle of projects can cost more than the licenses ever would.
5. Security and malware
Cracks and key generators come from anonymous sources and often carry malware, and cracked software usually cannot be updated, so known security flaws stay open. Security software frequently flags these tools for that reason. One cracked installer can expose a company’s network and its clients’ data.
6. Professional and safety risk
Engineering firms answer for the integrity of their calculations. In the UAE, using cracked engineering software may breach Dubai Municipality rules and puts the reliability of the design in question.
What to do instead
- Check what is installed on every computer, including laptops and home-office machines.
- Compare it with your licenses: users, editions, sites and terms.
- Buy what is missing, and remove what you do not need.
- If you received a notice about unlicensed software, respond before the deadline. See Received a notice?
Header photo: Bertrand SOUBEYRAND, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and toned).
