July 4th, 2007
Report Software Piracy, Get $1 Million … Maybe
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
The Business Software Alliance (BSA), which has long offered rewards for persons turning in their workplaces for software piracy, announced Monday a limited-time offer 
… an increase of the maximum reward to $1 million. From July to October, that is.
“Reporting software piracy is the right thing to do and BSA is pleased to reward individuals who come forward with credible information,” Jenny Blank, the organization’s director of enforcement, said in a statement. BSA’s members include Microsoft, Adobe and Autodesk. Source: News.com
We Say: Of course, the reward is up to $1 million. They aren’t going to pay that much to someone turning in a mom-and-pop business with 2 PCs. In fact, if you look at the guidelines for the program, you receive the $1 million reward only if the damages are $15,000,000 or above. If you want to take a chance, you can report online at www.nopiracy.com.
justin says:
I could report the company I work for, but they would probably track me down and kill me…
July 4th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Rob Harmer says:
It has been our experience over the last 17 years that this type of reward scheme encourages dis-gruntled employees or ex-employees to “get even” and cause significant disruption.
In our view, reward schemes do not solve the problem at all and we have been convinced of that over the last 12 to 15 years (Australia has had rewards since mid 1990s). All we have seen is massive amounts of wasted money and effort and seen no real change in the piracy ‘statistics” (which we don’t place a lot of credence in) that crop up every year.
Why mention this?
Its one of the lower level governance items that can easily slip under the radar when it gets to the controls aspects as many tend to downplay or ignore the impact.
The reality is, if your business is “suspected” of having software as a result of a “claim or report” (made under statutory declaration) by an employee or ex-employee, we can tell you that the impact is really very time consuming, disruptive and costly to defend. It could also cost you your job if you failed to adhere to the basic premises expected when running a business/IT system etc.
In practice, most sites end up paying the pipers tune (around 5 to 6 figure sums) as they really have no idea what is installed on their systems due to lax controls and inefficient management practices, and in some cases sheer stupidity. It also drives people down the Open Source path as well. Whether Open Source is good or bad is not the debating point, the fact is it is very disruptive to be running a business house to be presented with these reward schemes and then see the knee jerk reactions that inevitably follow.
The rule of thumb you can use (based on past experience from cases we have seen) is multiply the published fine by 3 to 4 times and you get the true cost of disruption, legal defense, staff costs, extra software licenses etc as the fine is only the external costs shown!
Make sure your local management controls cover the manner in which you install, license, share and use software and the manner in which you audit and monitor activities of employees.
Ignore the issue and the reward scheme will bite you!
Many will now be tempted to claim the reward, so don’t underestimate the creative power of those who know how to “work the system”. Some “creative individuals work on the premise of “never get mad, wait for a time to get even”.
$1M could be a good reason for some to “even up the score” against a boss who was doing the wrong thing, or even if they were just browned off with the organization!
July 6th, 2007 at 8:33 pm