Local Internet Service Providers NetRegistry has flatly refuted that it's breached software licensing agreements, despite strong claims by the Business Software Association of Australia.
The Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA) wouldn't disclose how many software licences it claimed the ISP had pirated but said the company was "significantly in breach".
"They've [NetRegistry] acknowledged they're in breach," BSAA chairman Jim Macnamara told ZDNet.
"We're not just talking one or two licences," he added. "We wouldn't have gone to the legal cost if it was only that."
However, NetRegistry claims that despite extensive accusations from the BSAA about software abuse, it is adequately covered with software licenses.
"We vigorously deny that we acknowledged any breach of licence," NetRegistry CEO Larry Bloch said. "We're fully software licence compliant."
According to NetRegistry it was agreed that they wouldn't be required to pay a fine and that the case would be dropped by the BSAA.
"It was agreed that there was to be no further action taken against NetRegistry and that we wouldn't have to pay them [BSAA] a cent," NetRegistry's Giles Donovan said.
The BSAA claims that as part of the settlement NetRegistry has agreed to allow the BSAA to conduct an audit of its software licences further down the track.
Such an undertaking stops companies becoming legal for a day and reinstalling unlicensed software later, according to Macnamara.
NetRegistry said it had reached that settlement with the BSAA because it was "less painful" than pursuing the matter in court and said it had "no problem" with the BSAA auditing its software licences whenever it wanted to.
For the BSAA to say that there has been a settlement out of court "in some way implies that we accept liability," Bloch added. "We accepted no liability at all."
The BSAA said it had agreed not to disclose further details of the settlement.
"We're not accusing NetRegistry management of any deliberate action," Macnamara said.
"Particularly in the IT sector there really needs to be management systems in place to check what's happening."
The BSAA claims to be in the throes of striking settlements with two other Web-based companies for using pirated software.
