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Business Software Alliance "Grace Period"
The BSA is running (until January 31) a "Grace Period" for "voluntary compliance" in the cities of San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, Houston,Norfolk/Richmond, Nashville, Indianapolis, Bozeman, and Orlando. Small businesses recieve a card in the mail, having been assigned a tracking number, so you know you're in their files. In previous press releases they state that they send out up to 700,000 of these cards simultaneously. Scanning their reported settlement victories, they then seem to pick 2-4 business to destroy. If the businesses don't go along, the BSA hires the Federal Marshals as mercenaries to help ensure compliance with their extortion. Microsoft, unsurprisngly, is a big supporter of this and pushes it to vendors as a chance to strengthen customer relations. (this is a powerpoint document, but thankfully you can also have it: translated via google). CD: Here is a link to the press release on this matter.
Am I the only sleep-deprived person who read the front page blurb thinking that the Boy Scouts of America would be sending storm troopers into the homes of 700,000 random citizens?
Guten Morgen! Ve are from ze Boy Scouts, und ve must this home search! After we have zis done, ve vill force you...to tie knots!
They that would sacrifice their
OK, let's say you steal $50,000 from the bank, and the police come to your house and say "Give us the $50,000 or we'll throw you in jail." Is that extortion? Hardly.
Why do people think that illegally copying software is a right? If you don't want to pay for software, use open-source software instead. Isn't that why we're all here -- to promote open source software solutions? Why are we hell bent on also trying to legitamize bootlegged software, when doing so does nothing but make "free software advocates" look like a bunch of freeloaders?
I wish people would understand that free software is exactly the opposite of freeloading -- it's giving your work away for the public good. Articles like this one put me in the same group of people that are on the side of the illegal theft of intellectual property that someone has chosen not to make public. It's someone else's right to ask me to pay for software, just as it's my right to give it away for free.
Go write free software. Go use free software. Go evangelize free software. But please, don't be so fucking petty as to complain about someone enforcing the fact that their software isn't free.
I run a one person operation out of my house and I got one of these letters. What do they do, go down the list of businesses in an area and figure EVERYBODY is pirating their software? I am ingnoring everything they send me. If they want to send a federal marshall to my house, I will see their ass in court. I haven't run windows for about 2 years now, and have never had any employees to rat on me for using "illegal software." Pirate my ass. More than anything this makes me want to start doing file sharing on every piece of software I own.
So how exactly does this work? If you're a business in that area, do they send you a "card", and demand you reply with a statement saying that you're 100% compliant or they'll sue the pants off of you?
Or in other words making people pay what they agreed to pay when they started using the software. Its not like they didn't have a choice.
Emotive words like "mercenaries" and "extortion" don't help, any more than words like "piracy" and "software theft".
Meantime this is an excellent time to stop preaching to the choir and start telling those businesses about open source software. Issue press releases. Get interviewed by radio and TV.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Do these BSA guys realise what they are doing? Scaring off their customers? Being extremely arrogant and intrusive? What about that old adage of your customer being the king?
I guess _this_ is one of the best reasons for switching away from vendors that are members of the BSA: None of those license troubles with free software. None of those expensive audits to do (is that included in those MS TCO calculations?). None of those guilt assumptions. No insecurity.
A while back, for work, I had to download something from Microsoft that required "a Passport account." As it turns out, they accept hotmail accounts for this purpose, too. The particular hotmail account's used here had a "real" name of "Stumpy McGee". However, when I signed up for the account, I did use my real USPS mailing address.
Flash forward six months. I start receiving random mailings from Microsoft, Adobe, etc., warning Stumpy McGee of "Fancy Schmancy Puters" that he's probably got pirated software in his company, and that disgruntled employees are lining up to report him, probably. The letter left little doubt that Stumpy was headed for big trouble. But of course, Stumpy could run the "Self-Audit" software and they would take it easy on him.
My question: Has anybody actually run this self-audit software? (I don't think they have a Linux version, so I was out of luck. Did I say "I was out of luck?" I meant Stumpy was out of luck, not me...) What exactly does the spyware do on your system?
Inquiring minds want to know.
..the BSA hires the Federal Marshals as mercenaries to help ensure compliance with their extortion..
Well, thanks for that nicely impartial journalist attitude there. Its amazing what a simple line can do to affect the inflection of a story.
Instead, how about..
'the BSA hires Federal Marshals to ensure the hard work and effort by its members is not stolen by parasitic scum who steal like common thieves.'
I develop software for a small company. I'm quite lucky to be where I am now, doing what I want to. I also work on OSS as a hobby.. (Such as a perl port of PG+ that runs Uberworld.) Trust me, if ever I meet someone offering me a 'warez' copy of something I wrote I certianly won't be giving them a big cheery grin..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Note the use of Orwellian doublespeak euphemism in the BSA's chilling press release:
Translation: Robbers! Sinners! Repent, O ye unclean ones!
The Grace Period ...is a great opportunity for businesses to resolve any compliance issues before they become subjects of a BSA investigation.
Translation: the Gestapo is on the way. Grab your ankles and smile.
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is the voice of the world's software and Internet industry
Translation: The BSA is out to squeeze every last possible dollar out of software users
BSA worldwide members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, FileMaker, Macromedia, Microsoft, Symantec, and Unigraphics Solutions
No comment necessary.
Those who scoff at Open Source/GNU should consider whether they want to live in a world where the tentacles of the BSA and their ilk -- and in an increasingly digitized world, expect, oh yes, do expect similar organizations to crop up defending the interests of digital text publishers, media broadcasters, etc.-- extend, oozing, slimy and cold, into every crevice and opening of what we used to quaintly refer to as our "private lives".
Under current copyright and contract law, BSA is free to represent its members and do what's described in this article.
However, I find its methods too severe and too aggressive. BSA should consider helping the companies to comply with licenses rather than scaring them and send in the police. If BSA developed a good license administration tool and released it under the GNU GPL or any open source license with the source code, I think many companies would improve in their license compliance.
Some companies will steal anything they can, but most companies are serious and should not be treated as criminals. Doing a good license audit today is very costly and hard to administer for a small or medium sized company. BSA should treat the potential costumers of its members with respect and appreciate this problem. Developing an administrative solution and perhaps a license crawling spider - with very open code - is a much better way of helping the companies than by using cease-and-desist-letters.
Hence, BSA should consider a different and more customer friendly policy. We, the public, should consider an evalutation of the copyright system for computer programs at large.
Regards
Mikael
Pawlo.com
And let me explain why.
:-)
(moderators: this is not a troll.)
The harder the BSA come down on companies like a ton of bricks, the more attractive open source alternatives will be.
The microsoft licensing schemes are so convoluted that even if you buy stuff from legit resellers bundled with your PCs, you still may be technically in violation of m$ licensing, depending on how your software is being used.
It's almost impossible for large corporations to be 100% sure of total compliance, even if all their software is purchased legitimately. And the BSA knows this. It's exactly like the mafia's "protection" racket.
Fortunately corporations now have a legit means of escape. Replace NT servers with Linux ones. The cost of switching to Linux might be high, but often the cost of having to "get compliant" is higher. And Linux is a one time cost, whereas you can be assured the BSA will be knocking on your door regularly if they think they can get away with it.
So I say bring on the BSA gestapo! They will be inadvertently helping promote open source alternatives, it's better promotion than Linux could ever buy (though we can exploit the situation if we choose
Imagine if the RIAA sent a card to every person in America asking them to sign a statement saying they don't own any pirated music, and if they don't sign, you can be raided by federal marshalls for suspicion of piracy. A long time ago, I thought 2002 would be a good year. Finally peace on Earth, regular space missions, a moon base, etc. Instead we have endless bickering over a few dollars worth of binary digits that somehow do something that is expected to be traded for money or something else of value. A few dollars worth of binary digits that, if you refuse to Opt Out of a legal battle by signing a statement, will mean you are subject to illegal search and seizure. This would be like the Government sending a card for everyone to sign stating they "don't have any illegal weapons" and if you don't sign, you are immediately suspected of owning illegal weapons. Whatever happened to the 5th Amendment? Whatever happened to being innocent until PROVEN guilty? Are they going to take that right away now?
Cool! Amazing Toys.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
They offered to help me track down potential license infrigements. And certainly, I could provide him with a list of software I'm using.
The comical effect was lost as the clueless telemarketer could'nt find "lunix", "apache" and "perl" in his list.
"It's open-s... nevermind, I have a meeting bye"
Do these BSA guys realise what they are doing? Scaring off their customers? Being extremely arrogant and intrusive? What about that old adage of your customer being the king?
I guess _this_ is one of the best reasons for switching away from vendors that are members of the BSA: None of those license troubles with free software. None of those expensive audits to do (is that included in those MS TCO calculations?). None of those guilt assumptions. No insecurity.
I think one of the main reasons free software hasn't caught on is that most people get their software (beer-)free anyway, whether it's supposed to be free or not. After all, why install and learn, say, Mandrake+KDE+KOffice when you can just install someone else's copies of NT and MSOffice and not have to learn anything new?
So as a free/open-source supporter, I'm all in favor of the BSA cracking down on copyright violators. If they make sure everyone pays full price for their proprietary software, people will start giving serious consideration to the truly free alternatives.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
" No matter how you hype it, it's just not legal for a company to own (or sometimes not) a single copy of Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Office and run it on 10's or 100's of computers. Somebody has to enforce the law or it breaks down. "
This somebody is supposed to be the "police" and "justice", or it breaks down.
"Incedentally, it's the same copyright law that keeps your GPL software free that they are protecting! "
The GPL uses the copyright system against itself. Without copyright, there would be little need for GPL.
No.
I'm speaking here as someone who, a couple years ago, was working in the IS department of a company which was hit by one of these threatening letters.
Generally, they instruct the target company to run their auditing software to "prove" that they are in compliance with all software licenses on site. Such letters of instruction usually include a threat of legal action if the company does not comply. The threat is their standard operating procedure - it doesn't matter if you are 100% legal.
Since most companies would rather not pay to defend against a frivolous lawsuit, or risk an oversight of some software than Joe Employee may have installed, they end up performing the audit. The BSA doesn't offer any compensation for IS hours lost due to this audit.
They also arrange penalties for any discovered "violations". Some of these can quickly get out of hand. For example, in my case, a copy of WordPerfect 5.1 (yes, in 1997!) was lying around on a Netware server which 350 people had access to. Nobody even knew it was there. Guess how many times that violation stacked up, even though no one was using the software.
Although Slashdot's writeup sounds biased, it really IS extortion taking place.
- SEAL
Let's put this perspective. Let's say that I own a business manufacturing foo X's, and I have a friend who manufactures a related product (foo Y). We know that we are being illegally deprived of millions of dollars annually, but the law doesn't adequately protect us. We have been in our particular industry for a long time, and we each know of many other businesses in a similar situation. We form an alliance with all of these businesses, and we work with the government to help stop the crimes against us.
Suddenly, by announcing a grace period for these criminals, we are extortionists? Since when did extortion include benevolence?
The legal definition of extortion is: the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right. 18 U.S.C. S 1951(b)(2).
The key words here are wrongful use. Is it wrong, when someone has stolen something from you, to offer them a conditional amnesty? You steal from me, and not some hypothetic company, and I'll do everything I can to see you put in jail.
Calling this extortion is akin to the robbery victim who pleads on the news for the return of his wallet - no questions asked - and all will be forgiven: is the victim then the extortionist?
I note that Borland, the developers of Kylix, is a member of the BSA. Are they evil for expecting people to pay for some of their products? Or, because Microsoft is also a member, does that mean that OF COURSE it is extortion, and OF COURSE the federal marshals are mercenaries? Or will the federal marshals be exempted when they are protecting your ass on an airliner?
Is that the equation? Federal Marshals On Airlines = Good Guys, Federal Marshals Helping Microsoft/the BSA = Bad Guys? And if the BSA are really extortionists, does that make the marshals guilty of aiding and abetting?
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
If you were a struggling proprietary commercial software developer would you join the BSA? Would you want to be associated with the immoral wealthiest companies and individuals in its ranks?
I think a better tactic to use to keep the majority of your user group in the paying customer category is to make your product worth buying and to make your product more valuable when it is purchased from you. By virtue of its (limited) success RedHat seems to be a company that exemplifies this tactic since its product is available free almost everywhere but people and companies still buy its products and it is very nearly profitable. A proprietary software developer should have no problem finding ways to make its product more attractive to buy than to copy, since it doesn't have the handicap of selling Free software.
People will always find some excuse for piracy, but until someone is pirating YOUR software, i really dont think you have any right to excuse yourself. It's theft of intellectual property. Don't do it, even if you have philosophical problems with Microsoft.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
I *never* use "Firstname Lastname". I always work something to do with the company whose list it is in there, and none too subtly either, so that if it turns up in spam I know who to bitch at. I'd like to see the look on their face when "Firstname Lastname" turned out to be "Microsoft Corporation". ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I went to the BSA site, and was reading the recent raids when I read this exerpt
Raided were Espina, Perez-Espina & Associates, an architectural and construction company located at the 2nd floor, The House of Architects, Juana Osmeña Ext., Cebu City, and, Arlington Engineering Services, an engineering design firm in Green Valley Subdivision, Lahug, Cebu City.
The NBI, after securing search warrants from Judge Benigno Gaviola of Cebu City Regional Trial Court, found four PCs of Espina, Perez-Espina & Associates allegedly loaded with unlicensed Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft software. The NBI seized 13 PCs allegedly loaded with Autodesk software from Arlington Engineering Services. Total assets, including hardware and software, confiscated from the two raids was valued at almost P5 million pesos.
Well this just gives me terrified thoughts of the frito bandito crashing through my window screaming "BADGES? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN BADGES!"
Jesus christ, they aren't sending Federal Marshalls storming into a business for no reason. That could not happen without some sort of precident. I don't believe that the BSA has ever done this and not uncovered mountains of software license violations.
Did you read in the article that the BSA were sending like 700.000 of these threats at a time?
Obviously, all the evidence they need for sending someone a letter is that they run a business.
OK, now suppose your business has a clear policy of never using pirated software. So what can you do?
1. You run the self-audit software. It is closed-source spyware, you have no idea what it will report, and you cannot expect any compensation if it breaks your mission-critical machine. This is an ugly option and there is no good reason why a honest businessman should be subjected to it. And nobody, guilty or innocent, would subject themselves to this voluntarily.
2. You "refuse to cooperate". Then you will get a visit from law enforcement, probably greatly disrupting your operation. Moreover, if they find anything wrong - your sysadmin made a mistake, or some stupid employee downloaded a serial number for Winzip - then you will have to pay for the exercise. Even if everything is actually perfect, something may be construed against you and you will face further expenses defending yourself.
Now tell me again that this is only fair.
It's free, and doesn't report anything back to anyone.
In other words, it's not spyware or adware.
Actually a pretty useful tool.
Not only tells you what you have on your system,
but reports free memory slots and current CPU speed as well.
Print the output, use as a handy reference.
Should you ever reformat, the list might come in handy.
You'll likely discover software you didn't know you had.
In France, the BSA had no legal presence (though they usually "spammed" people with their piracy-detection floppies and other funny letters.).
That's why an influent French Editor created an alternative organization : the Bidouilleurs Sans Argent which promotes the Free and/or free software.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I know of at least two small game developing companies who went bust after producing some very popular games.
Everyone had the games. They weren't even very expensive, just a couple of quid but 9 out of 10 copies were pirated.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Recently the management in the company I work for has started to talk about using Open Source software a lot more. Not because it is "better" but because it makes the bottom line look good.
:)
I suppose the fact that the "bottom up" approach of getting OS software in has something to do with it as well. One of the few projects that went in on time and on budget used java and OS instead of MS languages and tools, the fight we had to get the go ahead for not using MS tools was unreal.
Now I have management high up wanting to move our web based systems to OS, also we want to run Linux on our mainframe. Strangely enough we now have the capacity since fronting the former proprietory middleware with an OS based XMLRPC system.
It's slowly changing from fighting to use OS into becomming a no brainer for the higher ups. Especially as a lot of recent licencing changes have stung our bottom line.
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
Someone like Red Hat need to run an ad in the business section of each towns local news paper with a copy of the threating letter and let people know there is a better way...
They are fools if they don't use MS marketing when they can.
50 comments already at +2 and nobody's posted a copy of the actual note. Did they mention a penalty for reproducing that, too??
(for comparison, here's six months ago's effort)
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
Logically that argument holds water only if you were going to provide them with that revenue had you not violated their copyright in the first place. Hence if I illegaly copy a program that I wouldn't otherwise have bought, then I have not deprived the retailer of any revenue or potiential revenue.
Now this has little to do with theft as such. Dictionary.com gives the following definition of Larceny:
Now the property you're refering to here is money. The copying of the software is clearly not 'stealing' in the sense above, since you do not deprive the owner of his software, he still has his copy. However, you're clearly not stealing his money either, since he still has his software to sell. What you may or may not have done is deprive him of possible future earnings, and that's a different crime entirely. It's called copyright violation in most of the world, and is still a crime.
Why is this important? Well, words and their intended meanings are the only means of communication we have, and going around calling copyright violation 'stealing' is akin to calling "driving while under the influence," "possession of narcotics with the intent to sell", or calling "murder", "tax evasion."
Such usage can only serve to dilute the commonly understood meaning of the words we use to communicate, and those who do so intentionally, in order to further their own agenda, deserve nothing but contempt.
Stealing software is when you grab a copy of Windows from the shelfs of CompUSA and exit without paying for it. Copying the same software off a server somewhere is a different crime entirely.
Stefan Axelsson
Perhaps you want to live in a society where everybody has free reign to invade your life to verify that you are indeed not breaking any laws, but I'd sure as hell live in one where I was presumed *innocent* before proven guilty, not the other way around. The BSA should not be able to use scare tactics to single out and destroy arbitrary companies. Do you think this is a good thing? They should either bring lawsuits against ALL companies, and either lose the suits or engender so much bad will that nobody will every want to use their products, or not bring any at all. Any one company should not be allowed to scaremonger and arbitrarily cripple other companies by yelling "fire" in the free market.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
That's what this is all about. You'll notice they never send these cards out in October or May or other times of the year. It strikes me as purely a gambit to get dollars in the first quarter when many businesses (especially in this economy) are really holding back on capital spending until later in the year.
By sending these cards out they'll get extra revenue they might not have gotten. It's just like the middle ages -- when the king's coffers were low, he sent his soldiers to the villages to collect extra tax.
Jesus christ, they aren't sending Federal Marshalls storming into a business for no reason. That could not happen without some sort of precident. I don't believe that the BSA has ever done this and not uncovered mountains of software license violations.
Actually, they are. The last time this ran, someone recounted how the BSA raided their company (with federal marshalls), shut it down for 3 days, destroyed several Sun workstations while trying to run their software on them and then tried to walk away. Oh, and they didn't actually find anything.
Reboot macht Frei.
The usual method for inspecting your stuff goes something like this. They send the letter, and you refuse/ignore the audit. They open a lawsuit charging you with copyright infringement, often based on evidence that's either sketchy or "from an anonymous tip." In the course of the lawsuit, the judge assigned issues a subpoena (or warrant, based on certain legal concerns) for your company's software records. If you don't pony them up, you face contempt and other possible criminal charges. If you do, then their lawyers examine your stuff and your records, and if something doesn't ken, you get fined. Since this whole process can get prohibitively expensive quickly, most companies will perform the audit and buy licenses to get compliant, which is the real reason behind the letters.
BTW, federal marshals are basically the "U.S. police force", as opposed to state police or local police. They're usually attached to the FBI office in the area in which they work.
Virg
Why?
In short, BSA tactics turn member companies' customers into adversaries, and scare said customers into giving them money rather than go through the time and trouble to "prove" (at the customers' own time and expense!!!) they own all their software. It sure sounds like extortion to me! In any case, I dare someone to argue that threatening to sue ALL your customers and cause them added expenses, even if they did nothing wrong, is a good way to develop a customer relationship!
OK, let's say you steal $50,000 from the bank, and the police come to your house and say "Give us the $50,000 or we'll throw you in jail." Is that extortion? Hardly.
Actually, if the police bust down my door without a warrent, or with an illegally obtained one, it *is* illegal.
Let's say $50,000 has been stolen by someone in the city of, say, Orlando. The police most certainly cannot knock down doors of every house in Orlando without a warrant. If they do, the evidence is illegally obtained, and inadmissable in a court of law.
If they BSA were to show up at my door, I can first tell them to piss off, as they are a private organization with no law enforcement powers. Next they come back with a warrant, and get in, and find an illegally copy of FooBar 1.0. If our legal system actually worked, I could challenge the legality of the warrant on Probable Cause grounds, arguing that they had no reason to believe that I had illegal copies, thus making the search illegal, and the evidence inadmissable. (Refusing entry to your private space to someone without a warrant is not grounds for Probabale Cause either).
Unfortunately, I believe in some civil cases (which copyright infingment is) illegally obtained evidence can be admitted. So, they'd be able to sue me based on evidence concidered illegal in a criminal court.
Extortion? Maybe not. Flying in the face of at least the spirit of due process and the Constitution? Most definitly.
"Perhaps, if you were to IDENTIFY some Communists for us, we would therefore know that YOU YOURSELF are not a Communist..."
"Of course, Senator McCarthy...."
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Actually... and I have no idea whether this is the same in the US or not...
But technically, if a private citizen (not a cop, I mean) showed up with a warrant, you'd have to let him exercise it, just as if he were a cop.
I know of one person anyway (This was in Calgary, Alberta, Canada) who, years ago when his credit card was being used fraudulently to look at porn, and he tracked it back to a local ISP... he went to the cops. The cops said "We don't really have any idea how to proceed.. sorry, nothing we can do (this was years ago)"
So.. he went to the courthouse, went to a Justice of the Peace, and filed for a search warrant. The Justice said "I don't think I can do that sir (it had never come up before)". The guy cited relevant sections of the law, and the judge politely asked for some time to review it.
The next day, he had a search warrant, to search the logs of the ISP in question to find out who the user was.
Now.. not wanting to piss anyone off, like the cops, he then took the warrant to THEM, and again requested their assistance, as he already had a warrant. They sent a couple guys with him, no problem.
What you say about proof is absolutely what the problem is. It's like the police sending letters to everyone saying "Please prove there is nothing illegal going on in your house", and then getting warrants for everyone who doesn't respond properly.
Suprisingly they dont dare try this with companies like AT&T, IBM, or other Giants. why? because these companies have the power to stomp them out of existance. Try and enter any of the above companies with your "storm troopers" without a court order. and you had better find something as they will be sued for lost time,expenses,lost work and profits and probably sued for huge damages in a very messy public affair.
Please BSA, try to strong arm a really big company.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.