More than one third of European businesses check their software licenses on a regular basis to ensure they are still up to date. And the 30 per cent who do check, only do so on a quarterly basis, according to research carried out for the European Business Software Alliance (BSA).

The report found that the majority of companies are lax about keeping their licenses up to date, with only 14 per cent carrying out an audit every six months and 26 per cent revising their software annually. A substantial 32 per cent admitted to having never checked their licenses, or simply not knowing whether it was checked or not.

Ironically, the same survey found that European business software users equate the illegitimate use of software with tax fraud and more than a third of Europeans (36 per cent) believe software crime should be penalised with suitable compensation as well as the original cost of the software. A tenth believe software criminals should be prosecuted. Of all the countries surveyed, Ireland emerged with the third highest awareness of the software licensing concept. Nevertheless, our software piracy rate of 65 per cent is the second highest in Europe after Greece.

The UK ranked as the most conscientious country with 68 per cent checking at least twice a year. Belgium represents the average, with about 40 per cent of businesses checking the license at least every 6 months. Spanish users were found to be the worst, with only 12 per cent checking licenses every 6 months or less.

According to BSA research, if the current western European average piracy rate of 43 per cent could be reduced to the US level of 27 per cent, there would be an estimated $23 billion increase in sales of software products. This in turn would lead to the creation of an estimated 201,645 jobs and an additional $9.5 billion in tax revenue.