Business Software Alliance Update #2

by James Gaskin

May 26, 2006 —

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Following up with more details about the BSA (Business Software Alliance), many people seem appalled at the entire process. Yes, you must keep track of your license terms to prove your software is legally yours to use. Not own anymore, because of the publishers are usurping every right possible away from customers, but legal to use. Using stolen software falls under the heading of theft, period. But should misreading fine print, or misplacing an invoice subject you to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines from the BSA?

Rob Scott, one of the two Scott brothers running Scott and Scott LLP (www.bsadefense.com), represents companies facing BSA audits. I asked how often these supposed software pirate busts are really pirates and how often they are license confusion.

Scott emphatically stated that lapses are "exclusively paperwork mistakes or lack of controls over employees installing unauthorized software. Or no one was told to keep a particular document. BSA won't accept a purchase order or a certificate of authority."

BSA Director of Enforcement Jenny Blank told me directly that a certificate of authority is not good enough proof, at least to them, that your software is legal. Neither is a purchase order, because she didn't offer that as valid proof for their purposes.

Scott calls BEA (.com) the most morally reprehensible software publisher working with the BSA. Why? They offer software, including all manner of development kits, free via download. But if your developer uses the software in a product, the BEA demands their money. Scott calls their licensing terms obtuse and their prices very high, and recommends you take this situation extremely seriously. Go talk to your developers now.

After deleting any BEA software you find that wasn't specifically ordered through proper channels, go to the Accounts Payable department. Put a strict process in place to scan every incoming invoice to a special database. Make at least two copies of every physical invoice, and print out two copies of every electronic one. Store them securely in locked drawers so they won't wander. Or worse, be destroyed by a disgruntled employee looking for one of the $200,000 rewards offered to snitches by the BSA.

Put these measures in place for all software vendors, but especially for BEA, AutoDesk, Oracle, and Microsoft. Every software product from these vendors and the 22 others listed at www.bsa.org are a fine waiting to happen.

ITworld.com