When Threatened By Lawyers for Licence Violations?

An anonymous reader asks: "I help run the a small branch-office (15 staff) in a foreign country. Today I received a letter from Borland's lawyer saying that we are illegally using their software. We spoke to the programmers and with their permission, we did a 100% check of all the staff's PC. We found NO evidence of violations. The Borland rep/lawyer mentioned that their HQ has received online registration of their commercial software in the companies name. They refused to name the software and the person involved. I told them what we did but they insist we pay. But pay for what? Borland's lawyer has given us 10 days to act and reply. I feel threaten and angry. Other than paying good money for a lawyer to defend what I view as Borland threatening us, what can I do to get Borland to pay for my wasted time and my lawyer's fee. Slashdot users, anyone has receive such threats from Borland or other companies ?" It seems that when dealing with commercial software, any vendor you deal with can level these kinds of accusations, which will result in Cease and Desist letters appearing in your CIO's inbox. Many times, these letters show up on the basis of very little and sometimes incorrect information. How can a company accused of infringement convince the software publisher that no such infraction has occurred (assuming the company is innocent) without spending a barrel full of dollars to prove it? Update: 12/26 Noon, EDT by C :A few spelling errors corrected. Sorry about that.

Comments

My advice

[RaboKrabekian]

Go ask a lawyer, not Slashdot. You're bound to get better advice.

Re:Thanks for the info

[WIAKywbfatw]

If that's the basis on which you decide which application vendor to use then you're nuts. (Sorry, don't mean to be offensive but there's no other nice way to say it.)

Forget about whether or not Microsoft has more ethics than Borland (a statement I, several US states, dozens of other countries and countless software and hardware vendors would dispute) just take in the facts.

1. Someone registers a piece of software with Borland. That someone seems to be from company X.
2. Borland contact company X about unpaid for software.
3. Company X says we don't have any such software; Borland has evidence (granted, we don't know how strong or how weak) to the contrary.
4. Borland insists that company X pay for the software that they honestly believe company X is using.

That's the story so far. I'm sure the same thing happens hundreds of times every day with Microsoft, Lotus, Adobe, Macromedia, Borland, etc and I'm sure that, 99% of the time, things get sorted out way before they get really nasty. I'm sure that'll be the case here too.

So why are you getting pissed at Borland because they're trying to protect their investment? Is making sure people pay for something they get really that hideous a concept? Or should Borland let everyone who tries to get something for nothing get away with it?

What do you think that'll do to the company's bottom line? To it's chances of being around to develop the next generation of its tools? To the price of the software for honest users?

As I've stated elsewhere in this Ask Slashdot, it might be that Borland's right, it might be that both parties are the victims of someone else's malicious scheming or it might simply be a clerical error.

Whatever the situation, don't blame Borland for trying to protect itself from what it obviously sees as a genuine attempt to pirate its software.

Forget everything you've heard

[Quixotic Raindrop]

Despite the licensing agreement, they do not have a right to inspect your computers, servers, or anything else in your personal or business property, without either a subponea (in a civil case, which you can defend against), or a warrant (which must be served by a police agent, not a software engineer or marketing wonk, and must be issued by a magistrate because there is a reasonable assumption that investigators will find criminial activities or incriminating propery pursuant to an ongoing criminal investigation). Exercise your 4th Amendment rights. You own the property, including the computers, or your company does. You reserve the right to refuse physical access to anyone, short of court orders, even if those who sold you the software disagree.

Ironic, isn't it?

[jht]

Borland used to have (in the Turbo days) what I thought was the best license ever for commercial software, the "just like a book" license. You could do essentially whatever you wanted with the product, so long as only one person could use it at a time.

Of course, years later we have this. Granted, we're not talking about Turbo Pascal anymore - the tools are far pricier (so maybe they're a little more worried about "lost" revenue), but the restrictions they put on usage nowadays are just silly.

Re:Ironic, isn't it?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Yeah, and in those days Turbo [Whatever] was generally considered the best programming environment you could buy, and Borland was riding high. Now they're assholes, and they're also perpetually on the edge of financial disaster. Makes you wonder which is the chicken and which is the egg ...

What about home computers?

[Sir Tristam]

I'm going to go a little ways out on a limb here and say that you're right when you say that there are no Borland software improperly installed on the computers at work, while at the same time Borland's right that a product was registered on-line in the company's name. I'm willing to bet that what has happened is that one of your employees got a copy of some Borland product from "a friend of a friend of a friend" of the person who bought it, and they installed it on their home computer. They did the on-line registration, and since they work for you they put your company name in the registration field saying "Company" without even thinking about it. Borland's received several registrations for the same serial number, and so when this one comes in with your company name on it, they contact your company.

So, unless you also do an audit of your employees' private home computers (good luck!) I suspect that you're not going to find the software that Borland's complaining about.

It's also possible that Borland has a valid reason for not giving you the employee name under which this software was registered. If they realize that this scenario that I have outlined above may be the case, they might have also directly contacted that employee. If it turns out that he has not done anything wrong, then by giving you his name they might open themselves up to a slander suit by your employee.

Chris Beckenbach

Re:Thanks for the info

[Lord Sauron]

How can they honestly believe company X is using if they know anyone can type a wrong name in the registration ? If they blindly believe in this kind of info, then it's VERY easy to frame someone.

The Hazards of Commercial Software

[aminorex]

This is an illustration of the hazards of using
commercial software. An enterprise operating
exclusively on open-source software would be
effectively immune to such intimadations.

Re:Invite them to audit you.

[scrytch]

> The occasional solicitor can be found amongst the hordes.

Any lawyer that gives legal advice over ask slashdot is a lawyer with a short career. There's doctors on slashdot too, but we don't see "Ask Slashdot: What's this pain in my crotch all about?"