BSA explains its ethos
Published: 03 Aug 2004 14:45 BST
Is that one of the biggest education challenges, to get people to think of piracy beyond some guy in Hanoi selling Windows XP for $5?
I think it's a relative question. What we often find when we go to a business that's copying software and we tell them they're engaging in piracy, often they take offence. They respond that they're not selling software, they're not counterfeiting the software, they're just copying it.
From the perspective of the software company having its product used without recompense, there's not a lot of difference. It's like if somebody steals my car, I don't really care if they drive it and enjoy it or if they abandon it by the side of the road -- either way, I'm out a car.
Let me share with you some of the criticism I've heard about the way the BSA conducts audits, starting with the idea that it's hardly ever a private thing. The BSA wants to publicise the outcome, and there's a degree of embarrassment for the company involved.
As I said earlier, even our enforcement programme is aimed at raising awareness. Unless we make known that we exist and we are doing these enforcement actions, it's hard to imagine how we could perform that awareness-raising function.
We don't announce the settlement or the outcome of any enforcement action in an effort to embarrass any company. Many of the companies with which we have settled with over the years are good, reputable companies. They pay their taxes, they obey OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) requirements. They just don't pay attention to their software licensing compliance. It's important to bring to the attention of the software-using community that failure there can have serious consequences. The best way to do that, we have found, is to let it be known that companies do end up being investigated and having to make payments to the BSA.
There's also a perception of audits used as harassment -- you've made a point of letting it be known that disgruntled ex-employees are a good source of leads.
We receive thousands of leads a year, and we take action on less than half of them. We take very seriously our responsibility to our companies to only proceed on the basis of reliable information. We don't do our companies any good by taking action against businesses that are in compliance with their software licensing requirements. We would very much reject any attempt by disgruntled ex-employees to get BSA to carry out their vendetta.
There have also been complaints that the BSA doesn't really distinguish between sloppy record-keeping and actively setting out to illegally copy software -- if you can't produce a licence, you're guilty.
We recognise there are situations where the problem is one of record-keeping, and we work with the company on that basis. But you don't want to have a situation where the company is deliberately copying the software and then saying, 'well, we have the licenses, but the dog ate them'. We take great care in pursuing these investigations to give the company the full opportunity to explain what happened. We take everything they provide to us into account. Anyone who's really familiar with how we approach these matters knows we make a serious effort to be firm but fair.
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