ABM Will Pay $85,000 to Settle Copyright Suit : Agreement: Computer industry group had accused Irvine firm of copying software without approval.
A software industry group formed to fight piracy said Tuesday that it has settled a copyright infringement lawsuit against Advanced Business Microsystems Inc., an Irvine company that supplies accounting software.
ABM has agreed to pay $85,000 to the Software Publishers Assn., a Washington-based trade group. The group uses the fund to pursue litigation against companies suspected of pirating software and to educate the public about copyright laws, said Terri Childs, a SPA spokeswoman.
The group sued ABM last November in federal court in Santa Ana, accusing the Irvine firm of using unauthorized copies of software on its computer network without licensing the product from the manufacturer.
Ilene Rosenthal, director of litigation for the group, said the case was the first brought against an Orange County company. Since 1988, the group has received $3 million in settlement payments from more than 100 companies for alleged copyright violations.
In addition to the $85,000 payment, ABM agreed to formulate policies aimed at avoiding unauthorized software copying by employees and to take steps to remove all unlicensed copies of software from its personal computers.
“We did find some areas where we were in technical violation, and we took immediate steps to correct the situation,” ABM President Gerald Blackie said in a statement. “We have also instituted more stringent control procedures to guarantee future compliance, including the use of a system that monitors all software in use on every computer connected to our networks.”
Rosenthal said the group was alerted to the alleged copyright infringement when former ABM employees called a special telephone hotline.
She said the company cooperated after the lawsuit was filed.
In this particular case, the association represented software makers Lotus Development, Microsoft, Symantec, WordPerfect, Wordstar International, Fifth Generation Systems, Ventura Software and Central Point Software.
