Belfast-based architecture firm Coogan & Co has been hit with £33,000 ($54,000) in fines and licensing fees, joining Armstrong Medical which was fined £12,000 in March and an unnamed company that was recently slapped with £10,000 in fines, both for the same offence.

The companies whose software products were involved were Autodesk, Microsoft and Adobe, the latter two of which are ever-present names in every recorded BSA case. This could be down to the ubiquity of their products, or a sign that these two BSA members are politically active in pushing for under-licensing and piracy to be punished.

Coogan & Co agreed to pay £18,000 to correctly license software from these companies plus damages of £15,000.

"A lot of businesses do not realise that when they purchase software they are actually purchasing a licence to use it, not the actual software itself. If a user makes more copies of the software than the licence permits, they are acting illegally," said BSA UK committee chair, Philippe Brire.

The BSA also repeated its IDC-backed claim that by reducing UK software piracy by 10 percent over four years, another 13,000 high-tech jobs would be created. This assertion , whatever the rights and wrongs of software licensing.