The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is a trade group representing a number of the world's largest software makers. It is funded through membership dues based on member company's software revenues, and through settlements from companies it successfully brings action against.
Robert Holleyman is its current president and CEO, the BSA employs a team of over 100 lawyers and investigators, which it uses to prosecute "thousands of cases a year" in conjunction with local law enforcement. The majority of these cases are reported to BSA either through one of its 65 piracy telephone hotlines, or through online report forms. After receiving a tip, BSA then sends the companies a note with an implicit threat of a forthcoming software licensing audit. If the BSA finds cases of software piracy, it assesses heavy monetary penalties. Some companies have switched to free software after having to pay such large fines (see , paragraph 7).
BSA has not been reported to support Free Software Foundation or other free software groups in their actions of copyright enforcement. They do support software patents.