The Business Software Alliance received just five solid reports of businesses using illegal software following a month-long campaign on software piracy during November.

The number of leads received for the year up to December was just 15, illustrating, perhaps, that Irish people are not as likely as other Europeans to report piracy to the authorities.

These figures mirror a recent survey showing the Republic ranked last of 13 European countries in terms of reporting software piracy.

The Business Software Alliance in Germany received almost 400 leads, resulting in 194 legal actions. The alliance in Spain received 263 leads, resulting in 227 legal actions.

In comparison just three legal cases were pursued by the alliance in the Republic from leads received during the first nine months of 2000.

Mr Conor Molloy, a Business Software Alliance spokesman, said the figures were probably low as legislative protection for employees who reported piracy at their firms did not come into force until this month.

"Our campaign was happening before the new laws took effect. Now employees who report the use of illegal software have legal protection," he said.

Under the Copyright Act, which became law on January 1st, a company using illegal software is liable to pay damages for using pirated software in addition to existing penalties - a five-year prison sentence and a once-off fine of up to £50,000.

Companies may also be fined up to £1,500 per piece of software copied illegally. So if 5,000 copies are seized then the fine can be 5,000 x £1,500 or £7,500,000, according to Mr Liam Birkett of F.R. Kelly & Co., patent and trade mark attorneys.

"An infringer now can be the person who provides facilitates for infringement, be that by way of import, export, sale, rental, loan or otherwise," said Mr Birkett.

Despite the poor reporting figures, the alliance is claiming success for its November truce, which enabled companies to get advice and technical support to dealing with software piracy.

The alliance highlights a 68 per cent overall response rate to the truce and says it received more than 10,000 hits to the two alliance websites during the campaign.

Almost 200 companies contacted the Business Software Alliance's confidential hotline for advice on how to use its GASP software - an audit tool that enables companies to carry out a self-audit for free.

The alliance mailed the GASP audit tool to more than 5,000 companies to enable them to carry out a self-audit for free.