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Complete Member Company List.

A selection of U.S. companies from the SIIA Member Directory: Accenture, Adobe, AOL, Barclays, Bloomberg, CNN, Charles Schwab, Citi, Cognizant, CollabNet, College Board, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Google, IBM, Infosys, Intel, Intuit, JPMorgan Chase, Lazard Freres, McGraw Hill, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Novell, Oracle, Reuters, Salesforce, SAP, SAS, Standard & Poor's, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Time Warner, UPI, The Wall Street Journal, Wells Fargo Bank.

The SIIA link to it from their own site on this page

(Check number 01 in the image fader thing on the page)

A smug teen who's downloading files from 'Pirates Palace' and 'Tune Weasel' finds his world turned upside down when automatic weapons-toting government agents break down the door and take his Mom away in handcuffs. The teen finds himself in a prison jumpsuit forced to tattoo shirtless adult inmates who eventually turn on him

Huh, that's funny. Last I checked you normally don't get jail time for copyright infringement. Search warrants? For your computer maybe. Serving papers for a court date? Sure. Arrested on the spot? Don't think so. Jail time? Not to my knowledge. The only legal consequence the SIIA lists on their site are "significant fines for copyright infringement." Unless the kid was uploading unreleased Guns N' Roses tracks or orchestrating the huge operation of The Pirate Bay I don't think he'll be doing time.

Maybe they should do a little more research before they imply that you will end up in a gulag tattooing cartoon characters on convicts?

Don't get me wrong, I'd be fine with the kid (assuming he's 18+) getting a letter in the mail saying he has to appear in court and then a slow five year montage ending with him settling out of court and not being able to go to college or only attending a community college. That'd be pretty realistic. I still don't agree with it but that's how it works these days. Who knows? Maybe the over emphasized results will backfire on them and the general populace will see how unrealistic the charges are for copyright violation? I mean, that's not going to change until a politician looks bad taking a sack of money in campaign contributions ... or realizes that it bothers his constituents that lives are being ruined over something that maybe isn't so serious that a person should be financially hobbled for the rest of their life or next seven years from bankruptcy or whatever results. Huge fines are enough to stop me from copyright violations but lets face it, you're not going to jail if you do it. You're not a hardened criminal with a rap sheet serving time next to murderers if you're convicted of file sharing. You're most likely going to settle out of court and be financially stunted.

http://www.epa.gov/tips/

http://www.siia.net/piracy/report.asp?gclid=COCrrZOs3JkCFRwDagodUxSNVg

and so on. In the modern, free west, you can anonymously report anyone for anything. At some point, just having to say how great the king is might actually be a better deal than getting nickle and dimed over every federal regulation.

SIIA reported this back on friday here: http://www.siia.net/press/releases/iBackups_senten cing.pdf (warning PDF)

Of-course there is no way that a company can do something stupid and cause evil (pdf) with data like that.

The SIIA's board of directors includes Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Intuit and Red Hat.

1. Call Redhat at 1-888-733-4281 or +1-919-754-3700 (outside the U.S.)
2. Tell them that this bill is an abomination that you cannot support and that if they support it they wont get your or your company's cash in the future.
3. Do the same for Sun:
   

   Sun Microsystems, Inc.
   4150 Network Circle
   Santa Clara, CA 95054
   Phone: US 1-800-555-9SUN; International 1-650-960-1300

   
   
4. And Oracle:Bullet Corporate Headquarters
   500 Oracle Parkway
   Redwood Shores, CA 94065
   Bullet Call for Directions
   650.506.7000
   Bullet International Phone
   +1.650.506.7000
   

   Bullet Corporate Headquarters
   500 Oracle Parkway
   Redwood Shores, CA 94065
   Bullet Call for Directions
   650.506.7000
   Bullet International Phone
   +1.650.506.7000

5. And so on

I've not seen any such endorsement on the SIAA site. I'm not accusing you of spreading FUD, but I am extremely interested in verifying for myself that Red Hat, Sun, etc. are actively supporting this bill.

It surely seems to be true:

• The article mentions SIIA halfway down the page.
• The SIIA board membership page lists Mark Webbink as the chair of the board.

Wrong acronym for the organization. Instead, it's SIIA (Software Information & Industry Association), but you're right -- Mark Webbink from RedHat is the chairman of the board! Time for me to write some letters and make a phone call or two...

http://www.siia.net/membership/board.asp

I just bought my first laptop in Taiwan. It's an Acer Aspire 5502WXCi. It came with Windows Home Edition in Chinese, so I popped in my Windows XP Pro in English that I use for my desktop and installed it. Everything detected. Up and running as usual.

Report them. You might get up to $50K reward. Let us know how much you really get.
http://www.siia.net/piracy/report.asp

Not really, since the Software and Information Industry Association is the same as the Software Publishers Association (SPA)

of course you realize you shouldn't be linking to that pirated video, since the original is still available for sale

When was the last time someone died of a computer worm from some's priated copy of windows?

Considering that the SIIA says that as much as half of all software is pirated, there's a good chance that pirated copies of Windows contributed significantly to the situation.

Don't forget to also get the 1997 video "It Could Have Been So Easy"!

We had a long discussion/testing/prototyping period on a product I worked on, Destination Reading. We decided that Java was totally inept at what we wanted to accomplish. We totally went with Flash and created a great product. It has been nominated for Best New K-16 Education Solution . Of course, right after shipping, the BASTARDS at Riverdeep in Dublin, Ireland completely shut down the Edmark office and fired everyone on the development team. BASTARDS BASTARDS BASTARDS I HOPE THEY LOSE

A. Government laws, regulations, and policies should facilitate public access to public information by encouraging a diversity of sources, including the government, library community and private sector information industry, to offer or provide access to such information.

D. Government should not use scarce resources to disseminate an information product that has the likelihood of duplicating other current or near future products in the market that reasonably achieve an agency's dissemination objective.

Nothing like consistency (unless it interferes with our cash making abilities) From SIAA's own Principles of Gov't Information.

And the rest of the address:
Software & Information Industry Association
1090 Vermont Ave., NW
Sixth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
telephone: +1 (202) 289-SIIA (or 7442)
fax: +1 (202) 289-7097

LeDuc's at extension 1352

All of them are here: http://www.siia.net/glance/contacts.asp

Well, it looks like more profiteering sleazebags are going to try and steal information that belongs in the public domain and was bought by taxpayer dollars and actually try to charge people for it and shut down public access to information.
now if *I* was president, I would make a short stop to thier HQ with a National Guard contingent and inform them face to face that I was claiming "Eminent Domain" and nationalizing all of thier assets, and If they didn't like it Sgt. Maj. can gleefully hang them from a lamppost.
However, now that Shrub is pretending to be president, I think we shall see more of this as his buddies try a full ham-fisted grab at public resources.

If you think these guys are sleazebags who should be shot, please visit thier website www.siia.net
or even write some email to some of thier employees
or even Elsiever Science
or mail to Email: usinfo-f@elsevier.com Email: cs_hscanada@harcourt.com although I am sure you can find more email addresses on thier contact page. remember boys, dont email them all at once or you might accidentally /. their server

Well, it looks like more profiteering sleazebags are going to try and steal information that belongs in the public domain and was bought by taxpayer dollars and actually try to charge people for it and shut down public access to information.
now if *I* was president, I would make a short stop to thier HQ with a National Guard contingent and inform them face to face that I was claiming "Eminent Domain" and nationalizing all of thier assets, and If they didn't like it Sgt. Maj. can gleefully hang them from a lamppost.
However, now that Shrub is pretending to be president, I think we shall see more of this as his buddies try a full ham-fisted grab at public resources.

If you think these guys are sleazebags who should be shot, please visit thier website www.siia.net
or even write some email to some of thier employees
or even Elsiever Science
or mail to Email: usinfo-f@elsevier.com Email: cs_hscanada@harcourt.com although I am sure you can find more email addresses on thier contact page. remember boys, dont email them all at once or you might accidentally /. their server

Nope, it's not the damage done in this case. The law states :

by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,

So they have to go by the retail value of the item. I also found a letter to the US Sentencing Commission regarding NET from the MPAA, RIAA dweebies in which they make their demands about that total retail value pretty clear:

(A) Use of Retail Value of Infringed Item. -The infringement amount is the retail value of the infringed item, multiplied by the number of infringing items, in a case involving any of the following:

(i) The quality and performance of the infringing item are identical to, or substantially indistinguishable from, or the infringing item is or comprises a digital or electronic reproduction of, the infringed item

With the deprecation or removal of an API, they can put people out of business, or send companies into bankruptcy.

MSFT has already done that sort of thing already, at least with 3D rendering APIs, and of course, to Netscape.

Industry analysts acknowledge this sort of thing. Go here, and look for the Dan Kuznetsky quote:

But Microsoft's support of Mono is simply the same old same old for the software giant, IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky said. Microsoft has historically achieved market dominance by controlling APIs, and forcing competitors to write software to its APIs, only to turn around and change those same APIs. "Instead of satisfying their own customers' demand, competitors are busy catching up with Microsoft," Kusnetzky said. "It looks like they've gotten someone in the open source community to play the game of following Microsoft around and trying to do what they do."

The old Software Publishers Association knew about it. They issued a white paper on the topic. Read pages 12 to 15 of that document for an older view of the problem.

MSFT looses $X Billion to piracy each year

Sort of a tangential point, but to fill in the $X: According to the SPA, software piracy has saved consumers worldwide over $59.2 billion in the last five years, and $12 billion last year alone. The linked document also details which regions saved the most.

It just really surprised me that they are denouncing Mundie's comments as well.
--

It just really surprised me that they are denouncing Mundie's comments as well.
--

Open Source Advocate Has Yet To Rebut Craig Mundie

Jeff Parns considers himself a model for free software advocacy: helping out at installfests, answering questions on the Central Kansas Free Unix User's Group mailing list, working in his spare time on a user-friendly graphical interface to cron. Why, then, has he yet to write a long-winded essay rebutting Microsoft exec Craig Mundie's recent remarks about open source?

Our crack interviewing team cornerned Parns in his home, where he was conspicuously not combing through the text of Mundie's remarks, just as he had not been in attendance at NYU's Stern School of Business on May 3 to hear Mundie speak. What justified this weird behavior?

"I really think there are enough rebuttals already, " said Parns. "I mean, have you even read all those things? "

Eric S. Raymond, whose two preemptive rebuttals sparked the craze, was pessimistic about the chances for a Parns rebuttal in the future. "Obviously, we can't force him to write a rebuttal to Mundie's wrong-headed remarks about open source," said Raymond. "However, it's possible that my new paper, 'How I Rebutted Craig Mundie's Wrong-Headed Remarks About Open Source In Copious Detail--And How You Can Too' will give him some ideas. In fact, there's sort of a little form rebuttal in Appendix C which he can sign his name to and get it linked from Linux Today."

"As a full-time programmer, my day is pretty busy," said Brian Behlendorf of the Apache Software Foundation, whose anti-Mundie remarks were picked up by Infoworld. "Yet even I managed to stop by Mundie's speech and make a few remarks to the press. I don't think this Parns is even trying. I mean, even Steve Ballmer published a 3000-word Mundie rebuttal. Sic transit gloria Mundie, I guess."

Even Parns' neighbors have begun to notice this gap in the open source ranks. "The way he helped me with my Red Hat install, I was sure he was some sort of hot-shot free software advocate," said Millie Leman, a local dominatrix and mother of two. "But I haven't heard one word from him about this Mundie thing. It makes a person wonder."

"Look, it's spring, my son's about to graduate from junior high, I'm trying to get KCron to 1.0," said Parns, shooing this reporter out his front door. "Just leave me alone."

Will Parns rebut? Already, rebuttals with his name on them have begun showing up, though he denies authorship. Watch for the rebuttal signed with Parns' Gnu Privacy Guard key, and keep reading Segfault.org for complete coverage of every Mundie rebuttal ever written.

Tomorrow: An in-depth look at the rebuttal that Mark Billings of London saved to ~mark/mundie.txt, but never showed to anybody.

(This 'story' was first shown at Segfault.org here, and was written by Leonard Richardson)

When UCITA came to my home state, Maryland, I was informed by several consumer/library advocates that lobbyists from Microsoft and AOL were in attendence and vocally in favor of UCITA.

Here is some pro-UCITA propaganda its proponents have put up:

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)'s UCITA brief; and here are the SIIA's members.

And my all-time favorite, the Business Software Alliance's Why Software Professionals Should Support [UCITA] (And What Will Happen If They Don't.

The BSA consists of Adobe, Apple, Compaq, Dell, IBM, Intel ... and, of course, Microsoft. Here is a list of member companies.

Additionally, if you want a good "Who's-Who" on UCITA, check out the comments filed at the Federal Trade Commission's recent conference on High-Tech Warranties.

If you're interested, here is a site I threw up concerning UCITA and EULAs. I wrote a letter to Maryland governor Glendening opposing UCITA, and here's the nebulous reply I got back.

Sincerely,

Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

When UCITA came to my home state, Maryland, I was informed by several consumer/library advocates that lobbyists from Microsoft and AOL were in attendence and vocally in favor of UCITA.

Here is some pro-UCITA propaganda its proponents have put up:

The Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA)'s UCITA brief; and here are the SIIA's members.

And my all-time favorite, the Business Software Alliance's Why Software Professionals Should Support [UCITA] (And What Will Happen If They Don't.

The BSA consists of Adobe, Apple, Compaq, Dell, IBM, Intel ... and, of course, Microsoft. Here is a list of member companies.

Additionally, if you want a good "Who's-Who" on UCITA, check out the comments filed at the Federal Trade Commission's recent conference on High-Tech Warranties.

If you're interested, here is a site I threw up concerning UCITA and EULAs. I wrote a letter to Maryland governor Glendening opposing UCITA, and here's the nebulous reply I got back.

Sincerely,

Vergil
Vergil Bushnell

Code does fall under copyright law even in binary form. This is the boneheaded decision foisted on us. It would be interesting if the rulings had required the code to be released for copyright protection to be applied.

Here's a link to a statement of the law by one of the groups dedicated stamping out software piracy (the SIIA which used to be the SPA) among other things.

Since software is intangible, it seems that people don't always realize that they can't copy willy-nilly everything. We're all susceptible to it, and I don't think anyone here can claim to be pure.

That said, widespread, systematic piracy is Not The Right Thing(tm). If you're getting pressure to deliver something that contains unlicensed software, I usually proceed as follows:

• If the requestor can produce a P.O. or some other internal document showing that the license has been put into the purchasing process (not just requested, but approved), I'll generally install it, with the admonishment to the person that they really need to think a bit ahead of time, and not do things at the last minute. I will then require that the person give me the software when it comes in. (Actually, I generally demand that the requestor send an email to Receiving (cc:'d to my boss and his boss) that the software is to be delivered directly to me, and NOT to the requestor - that way, I know it came in.)
• If the previous becomes a habit, I generally start refusing to install stuff, period.
• For people who start to make noise about me not getting stuff to them (due to their lack of proper licensing), I make sure that they've made a formal request for the item. I can then point to the request, and truthfully say: "It hasn't arrived yet." This works really well with higher-ups, if the person complains to their boss that I'm not being responsive, I have a perfectly valid (and documented) response.
• If you work in a start up, don't forget you can call the funding V.C.s (if the company has any) for help as a last resort. They most certainly will back you.

If these steps fail, and you're still getting pressure to install stuff illegally, I'd try to have the requestor walk over with you to Company Counsel (ie. the lawyer), or, if that's not practical, to the Comptroller, Internal Audit, or a very Sr. Executive. Calmly explain in the presence of both of them what you see as the problem. Remain calm, and don't use inflamatory language. But be firm.

Should all this fail, you don't want to stay there. Period. Your management is not trustworthy, and they fail to show you any professional respect. Look for another job.

If they threaten you or otherwise become really hostile - REMAIN CALM. Don't blow your top. Get out of the situation as gracefully as you can, and do the following immediately:

1. Dump a full copy of all your email to someplace safe that you can protect - removable media, or better yet, a remote (ie, non-company) machine. At worst, create a Hotmail account and forward all your email there.
2. If you can, make copies of all ordering documentation you have. Take the documentation with you that night.
3. If you have it, make a copy of the current licensing level of the company. This will often be in a spreadsheet or database (like Excel or Access). Take it with you.
4. The next day, find a lawyer. Do it.
5. Give the company a couple of days to come to their senses. 2 or 3 is reasonable. If they don't, come to work with your lawyer. Talk to your boss with your lawyer present, and explain that you are quitting, effective immediately, and the reason why. Demand that they both pay the required software licenses AND pay you a severance package. Be reasonable for the severance, but be firm.
6. If they refuse, leave. Period. Talk with your lawyer, and decide if you should report them to the local police. Or you can report them to the SPA anti-piracy hotline. Remember, that you will be covered under the Federal Wistleblower Act. If the company is found guilty, you are entitled to a significant portion of the assessed fine.

Hopefully, you should never get that far. But talking to a good lawyer (particularly one in labor/employment law) is always an excellent idea.

-Erik

Just an observation: wasn't the whole idea of the formulation of the GPL to mimic the commercial shrink-wrap license?

That would be the root of the argument made by an Anonymous Coward earlier in this thread, that the collapse of the GPL in its current form would weaken all shrinkwrap agreements.

I would be interested in hearing what the Software and Information Industry Association (formerly the Software Publishers Association) has to say on the issue. (You can look, but when I posted this nothing was there on the subject.) Then there is the Association of Shareware Professionals who also haven't said a word.

Why bring up the ASP? I suspect that if the GPL falls, so will the shareware license agreements, and pretty much for the same reasons: privity. Remember, shareware is meant to be distributed by the buying customer to other third parties.

http://www.siia.net/shar edcontent/press/2000/amicusbr2.pdf

It suggests how Microsoft #3 (IE, Inc.) might turn a profit (hosting a web portal on the new default home page, ala www.netscape.com; selling engineering services, to customers including Microsoft #1 and Microsoft #2; pp. 59-60), and even mentions the Microsoft vs. Slashdot battle over the Kerebos extension specs (p. 53).

My mistake. The first brief was in reference to the "Conclusions of Law." This PDF file documents the SIAA's poistion on splitting microsft into three companies. The Internet Explorer company would probably encompass Expedia, MSN, Carpoint, and number of other "Content" businesses.

The friend of the court brief is here

But even more damning is the lack of need for the ATL. Couldn't most, if not all, of the ATL's main goals fit withen the charter of the Business Software Alliance or the Software & Information Industry Association? So, why aren't we seeing a survey from the BSA? Or at least a responce from the BSA? If more of us email the BSA about this then maybe we can get an unbias survey conducted.

In copyright law there is something called "contributory infringement" that seems to be vague and poorly defined. The SPA has a policy statement that asserts that an Internet Access Provider who allows serial numbers and cracks to be downloaded from their system is liable for contributory infringement. That may or may not be the law, but it wouldn't be much of a leap to claim that hypertext links might also constitute contributory infringement.

"Corel is illegally distributing copyrighted software".

Maybe the SPA will whack them, and say they're embarrassing everyone by disrespecting people's copyrights. Maybe the SPA will ignore it, and we can all laught at them for being hypocrites.

While software piracy has real economic effects, the methods and conclusions stated by the BSA, SIIA (formerly the SPA) and other software industry groups are grossly overstated. Moreover, piracy actually reduces the cost of consumer software -- this is just simple economics at work. Yes, piracy also reduces software revenues, but the consumer impact is often either misstated or unstated.

I wrote a response to last year's SPA report. As the SIIA is repeating its rediculous revenue loss figures, I will continue to promote the piece. Specifically, SIIA's definitions of "supply" and "demand" have absolutely no relationship to the same terms as used in economics, and the "loss" estimates are merely the street value of pirated softare, not the lost business opportunity.

Here's a point to ponder. If software companies are booking these losses as tax writeoffs, this is a tremendous fraud being practiced to the cost of US taxpayers.

Karsten M. Self
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?