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BSA Software Piracy Fight Smacks of RIAA Crackdown
Ron Paul Dennis Kucinich writes "A Business Software Alliance raid on musical-instrument maker Ernie Ball Inc. cost the company $90,000 in a settlement. Soon after, Microsoft sent other businesses in the region around Ball's a flyer offering discounts on software licenses, along with a reminder not to wind up like Ernie Ball. Enraged, CEO Sterling Ball vowed never to use Microsoft software again, even if 'we have to buy 10,000 abacuses.' Similar BSA raids around the country have been provoking strong reactions from put-upon business owners, echoing similar reactions to music-lovers targeted by the RIAA."
My dear sir, let me introduce you to something called 'linux'. I favor Kubuntu myself.
I think this is great news for FOSS people. Up until now, most software vendors have been quite generous on their piracy tolerance. If these companies start pushing it hard, and making people pay, things will start changing.
Many people just download photoshop because that's what they know. If they have to pay for it, there will be a HUGE shift to GIMP. And that's even more true with Microsoft stuff, at least in Spain. I know very few people who have bought a copy of Windows (not counting what came with the computer). But it's easy to pirate, so they go for it. If they faced fines of 1000 euro for it (or had to pay 300 to buy it in the first place), a lot of people would consider linux. Now, both are free (in practice), so price is not a problem when choosing. Factor that in, and things look very different.
So, good news, people will start using what they need, and not the professional (and expensive) tool for home stuff. And that usually means open source.
Tis women makes us love, Tis Love that makes us sad, Tis sadness makes us drink, And drinking makes us mad.
The problem I see is it's not just that. You don't just need money to pay for the software you use, you need money to pay to keep track of it for X years and all the other associated crap. And some of those license thingies are kinda grey or complicated - per server, per client, concurrent clients, users (this could be vague), concurrent users, host, CPU (socketted), CPU core, MHz etc. Not just that, they can change from year to year. IIRC Windows XP Home was previously not for multiprocessor systems, but when multicore x86 CPUs came out, Microsoft said they meant socketed CPUs.
;)
"The BSA considers software pirated if a company can't produce a receipt for it, no matter how long ago it was purchased. Software boxes or certificates of authenticity are no help, because the BSA argues the software could have been obtained from an illegitimate source."
Does that mean even if you have Windows XP and MS Office certs stuck on the PC with a 1:1 cert:install mapping it doesn't count? What idiocy is that? I know lots of businesses will have difficulty retaining receipts and records longer than a few years. Might be in a box somewhere but nobody left in the company will know about it.
Whether the PC was stolen or not, if the cert+ key is real Microsoft etc already have got paid for it.
It could even be a gift, believe me people do donate software. I'm sure many churches and charitable organisations get such stuff. You don't always get receipts for that.
Thing is the BSA might have a different agenda from the companies it represents.
I heard the Microsoft boss in my country handled piracy cases differently - he told off his staff who apparently were going around taking people to court etc. Basically his opinion was these people were happy users of Microsoft software, all his staff needed to do was to convince them to license. Which shouldn't be too hard - "Hi, would you like to pay the $$$$$ per infringing copy (plus bosses risk imprisonment) or $$$ per licensed copy?".
Instant sale. Don't even need to send them any fancy media or boxes. Don't even need to send people to help install and configure the software - they've already done all that work themselves.
Only send in the thugs if they refuse to license after you find out they are noncompliant.
Last time I checked the licencing for the student/teacher edition of Powerpoint (I believe 2003) it allowed installation on three seperate machines.
Then there's the per device and per user licencing.
It'd be easy to keep track of if the only licencing model out there was "one key, one system" but in order to appease big businesses there's volume licencing, and that spread out into other different models. The fact that there are businesses out there who exist simply to keep track of licences says there's something dreadfully wrong with the current system.
While the GPL licenses are some of the more complex in OSS, the provisions affect distribution, not use. Mr. Ball can *use* GPL stuff all he wants without worrying about licensing issues. It is only when he develops the Ball Instrument Manufacturing accounting package based on GPL software and wants to distribute it that he has to be careful.