BSA's Tactics and Motives Questioned

_Hellfire_ sends us over to Baseline Magazine for a longish article entitled After 20 Years, Critics Question the BSA's Real Motives, which paints the Business Software Alliance in the same colors as the RIAA. "A recent Associated Press story highlighted the fact that 90 percent of the $13 million collected by the BSA in 2006 came from small businesses. Since 1993 the group has collected an estimated $89 million in damages from businesses on behalf of its members, every penny of which it keeps. 'I don't know of a business where you can get away with raiding a customer with armed marshals and expect them to continue to do business with you...' said [Sterling] Ball, who shifted his company to open source software after the raid."

Comments

If you're being raided...

[stygian]

...then you probably weren't actually a customer, so I doubt the software company would be very depressed to lose your business.

Not that I condone the BSA....

Re:If you're being raided...

[erroneus]

Early versions of your examples pale in comparison to present-day alternatives to the same apps. When those apps became the more widely accepted standards, they sucked worse. It's not the quality of the product that made them what they are. And even if F/OSS wares were "better" they'd still be "different" and people would not be inclined to migrate. It's not the quality that makes things happen. It's pricing and other marketing tactics that make things happen. Just look at MS Word versus Word Perfect. Look at Lotus 123 versus Excel too. Word was NEVER better than Word Perfect and it took quite a bit of leverage to get Word Perfect out of the legal offices even after the 'war' was over. And once Word was the victor, Lotus 123 fell simply because MS Office shipped with Excel. If it was about quality, the players in the game would be a lot different and IBM OS/2 would still be running on servers and desktops today.

Yes, we do have companies behaving in shameful and sometimes even illegal behaviors in building and maintaining their dominance in the markets. Not only that, they've manged to have laws written and have various enforcement departments operating at their beck and call with very little if any due process of law... in fact, internationally, causing armed law enforcement in other countries to violate their OWN laws in order to enforce the desires of companies here in the U.S. (Did you not hear about the pirate bay?) And even in cases where F/OSS software is 'winning' or at least gaining ground, these commercial entities have done immoral and illegal acts through bribery and corruption of foreign governments in order to reverse any deals involving F/OSS software.

I'm not ignoring any facts.

Your references to CAD software are irrelevant as even other commercial products cannot presently compete with Autodesk and not for reasons related to 'quality' and everything to do with compatibility being encumbered by the same laws written and paid [sponsored] for by these same industry leaders. Your reference to the GiMP is also pretty interesting in that the primary reason GiMP can't compete has nothing to do with its quality and everything to do with anti-competitive laws dealing with software patents that prevents the GiMP from incorporating the features needed to make it useful in a professional environment.

The point is that they play dirty... very very dirty. It's never been about quality. It has been about marketing practices, both legal and illegal, and their eventual practice of writing laws and paying politicians to make them happen. (It has also been their practice of abusing the patent and trademark laws to stifle competition... yes, I said trademark laws! 'Common words' cannot be trademarked and yet somehow Microsoft still has a trademark on the word "Windows" which is clearly in violation of the rules for trademarks.)

adversaries

[SoupGuru]

Is it only in the technology world where it seems that vendors and their customers are more like adversaries? Is there any other realm where the manufacturer demonizes the very people that buy the products that pay the rent? I'm sure the fact that 0s and 1s are easy to replicate makes this standoff easy to achieve but it's to point where a valid business model would include giving something away and then suing everyone to pay the bills. Of course, it already is a business model, I suppose. When it comes to patent trolls, the music and movie industry, and software producers it just seems like they are able to get away with treating their customers like dirt more than anywhere else.

Re:adversaries

[Todd Knarr]

But what happens when I do buy a TV from Best Buy. I hand them my credit card, the charge is approved, it shows up on my bill and I pay it, in short I bought and paid for that TV. 2 years later, Best Buy comes around demanding that I prove to them that I really did pay for that TV, and if I can't they're going to charge me with theft. I show them my credit-card statement showing their charge for the price of the TV, and they say "Not enough. You need to show us a printed store receipt for it.". Now, after 2 years the warranty's expired. The credit-card charge is long since paid and history. The TV's not something I can take as a deduction on my taxes or anything. Why in the world would I have the receipt still around? But Best Buy still says that they'll charge me with theft if I can't cough up that receipt.

Now, should Best Buy be demonizing me, calling me a thief? Or should I be demonizing them as clueless nut-cases?

Re:adversaries

[timmarhy]

it's not stealing, it's infringment, because they are using something without permission and doing so doesn't actually cost the owner anything. unlike a TV whih cost best buy money to buy and is a direct loss.

and obviously with 92% compilance they ARE customers aren't they. BSA is nothing more then a witch hunt organisation

Re:adversaries

[Todd Knarr]

You haven't dealt with the BSA, have you? Having unique product keys isn't enough, the BSA says that outright. All you having that key means is that someone somewhere paid for that software. The BSA wants proof that it was you that paid for that product, not your friend down the street who gave you a copy of his stuff. You can wave product keys and certificates of authenticity around all you want, they won't accept those without the receipt to go with them.

And no, they will get upset with you if it's only one computer missing the receipt. Maybe especially if that's all they can find. After all, if they don't find something to pin on you, you might very well be able to sue them for the (rather high) costs you had to incur. Ask Sterling Ball about that.

Re:adversaries

[Todd Knarr]

Go look at the BSA's website. What they want is two parts: proof that your copy is legitimate (product key or certificate of authenticity) and proof that your copy was paid for (actual receipt made out to you). Note that this is entirely reasonable, the unreasonable part is the BSA's standards of proof being far more strict than the law allows for. They then use the cost of your going into court and proving that they don't have a case to get a settlement from you.

Re:adversaries

[timmarhy]

oh please enough with the strawman arguments.

my point is these people maybe partly unlicensed but they are STILL CUSTOMERS, where the IRS don't consider you a customer at all and it's not like there's any other tax agency competing with them.

If you think sending legal attack dogs after 92% of your business in order to collect on 8% is good business tactics then your cut from the same cloth as SCO, and we all saw how that ended up.

this is just like (but on a much smaller scale) the time the local video store sent me threating legal letters over $20 of over due fines. I used to rent a movie from there every weekend, after that letter I stopped giving them my business. they lost 100's of $ in business over $20 in fees, and it's all part of a new business culture that's been emerging where the customer is considered the enemy.... but that's a topic for another day.

Re:adversaries

[Chris Burke]

The only way that the BSA is going to come after you is if they get tipped off that you are violating your license. If that happens it means that people at your company knew they were infringing.

If you're accused you must be guilty. Yeah, that's a safe assumption.

It couldn't possibly be that it's a disgruntled ex-employee who called in a bogus tip simply to harass their former employer. It couldn't possibly be a disgruntled ex-employee who was themselves responsible for the licensing and thus the lack of compliance, and they were the only ones who knew it.

I'm sorry, but in my world thats not gray, thats black. Having one valid license to a software product that was copied 200 times doesnt make it "gray".

And is having 200 valid licenses to a software product that was installed 201 times because someone forgot to delete one copy off an old computer black as well?

Is having 200 valid licenses to a software product that was installed 200 times, but someone didn't obey the specific terms of the EULA and moved the software from one computer to another also black?

Is having 200 valid licenses to a software product that was installed 200 times in complete accordance with the license terms, but not being able to meet the strict (and poorly specified) accounting to prove this to the BSA when they raid your company also black?

Is there any gray at all in your world?

Re:adversaries

[Todd Knarr]

Yes, but there's a problem: it's going to cost a lot of money to defend yourself in court, even if you win. And, except in very exceptional circumstances, you will not be allowed to counter-sue for your costs. If you manage to prove that you do have licenses for all the software the BSA wants to audit, you're guaranteed not to be able to recover costs. The EULA for the software you just proved you legally have (and whose EULA you accepted) is almost guaranteed to provide for BSA audits at your expense, and the court's very unlikely to rule that you aren't bound by the terms you accepted. The only way you'll have any chance at recovering costs is if you don't use even a single copy of any piece of software from a BSA member, have never at any point used such software, and can document the installation history of every bit of software on every machine your company owns in sufficient detail to convince a judge of this despite the best efforts of the BSA to poke holes in your records. And even in that case you'll have to spend large sums of money now, while any recovery you get (if you get it) will be years down the road after all the appeals are settled.

The BSA knows all this. They count on it. If they think you're balking, the first thing they'll do is point out just how much more they can cost you if you don't co-operate. And most businesses do the short-term economic calculation and decide it's cheaper to roll over than to fight and win.

Re:I have been in an Audit once

[Anonymous Coward]

We ended up having our lawyers and the BSA lawyers figure it out.

Ouch, wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay developers to move to open source alternatives? I am only half kidding here.

The real motive

[Harmonious Botch]

After 20 Years, Critics Question the BSA's Real Motives... The real motive? Money, obviously. I'm not trying to flame here, but their motives are just like almost every other business: they wanna make a buck. And they have found a market in which to do it. I'm not saying that they are angels, but if the market is what it is, we should not be surprised if someone satisfies it.

The real culprits here are the legislators who make the laws that cause such a market to exist.

Re:The real motive

[ScrewMaster]

... their motives are just like almost every other business: they wanna make a buck.

You could just as easily apply that premise to the Mafia. Look, the desire to make a buck does not make every such effort acceptable. An organization whose only product is intimidation, extortion and litigation cannot be considered a legitimate business entity in any civilized society.

So far as the BSA is concerned, the term "racketeer" comes much closer to the mark. Sooner or later they're going to piss off the wrong person and end up on the wrong end of a RICO suit.

Re:If you're being raided... (you are a customer)

[Anonymous Coward]

A) much of the time they get their authority to raid you from the agreements you signed when you became a customer; not being a customer makes you much safer

B) most of the people they get actually had licenses but have no clue how to fulfill the strict audit requirements. No the stickers on the back of your machine are not enough. You must have a purchase agreement for _everything_

C) most of the time the they threaten jail sentences (for the IT managers and staff) and accept money.

People just don't bother to fight because it's not worth it unless you are whiter than white, which is almost impossible in any company actually working and not spending it's entire time preparing for a BSA audit.

In other words, the best way to avoid the BSA is to stop being a Microsoft customer and switch over entirely to free software like Linux. Even if you claim the proprietary stuff is better (which it isn't) is it really worth destroying your life for a few bucks more of your employer's time?

Re:Armed Marshals? WTF?

[ianare]

Didn't you get the memo? The police, like most other government agencies, have been on sale to the highest bidder for quite some time now. This is especially true for local departments, but the feds are not immune from it.

Note that when the legislators are bought also (as appears to be the case here) it makes the process much, much easier for the buyer.

Re:You call them damages - I call them extortion

[jmauro]

By the US Constitution, Congress has the right to set the limits to anything they damn well please. The only restriction is that they must be limited (i.e. a set time, any time will do even if it's 1 million years). While the initial terms were 12-13 years for both, nothing in the Constitution said they had to stay that way. The Supreme Court also indicated that the whole thing was dumb in Eldred v. Ashcroft, but basicly came to the conclusion there was nothing in the Constitution that prevents Congress from doing dumb things.

GPL = One Size Fits All

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL is the only license you need. Everything you're paying $150 to $150,000 for software to do can be done by free (libre) software.

What's that you say? You've got requirement X, and no free software exists to do it? Get together with your competitors, pool your money, and hire a software company to make the GPL software you need.

There's no excuse for proprietary software anymore; it's an inefficient waste of money. You hire a plumber to install a toilet so you can use it whenever nature calls. Would you hire a plumber to install a pay toilet in your house? Then why do you hire a programmer to install the equivalent in your computer?

Tactics & Motives are Questioned ?????

[queenb**ch]

I don't really see what you have to question. The BSA has been pretty blatant that they're *all* about collecting money via any means possible from any one that they can basically extort it from.

Quite frankly, a quick look at their business model shows them to be what they are - the new corporate raiders.

2 cents,

QueenB.

Re:I'll never pay those I didn't pay anyway, now!

[FroBugg]

Or, if you read the article, you could see that he was 92% in compliance. And this doesn't necessarily mean that the other 8% were pirated, just that they weren't properly documented. Maybe they installed Office on one too many computers. Maybe they lost a receipt or two. But they were most definitely customers.

Re:You call them damages - I call them extortion

[AuMatar]

Now add in US sales tax and property taxes, and the difference becomes minor. Now add in the increased level of services they get in Europe, including health care. Sorry, the EU wins. And I say that as an American.

Re:Same again

[Chris Burke]

Therefore a big company is likely to have an IT department that does a good job of making sure it has licenses for everything and doesnt cut corners to save a few bucks here and there.

Yes, that's very true, the big company can afford to pay people solely to look after their licensing.

It also has to do with the kinds of licensing small business vs large ones can afford. A large corporation can afford site licenses or bulk-licenses where a large number of users are covered by a single license. It's much easier to keep track of, and to know whether any particular user of the software is legal (either they all are, or any machine that can get a license from the license server is), and easy to know when it expires (there's one date).

Whereas a small company that has to buy individual licenses (especially in the form of shrink-wrapped boxes which means the license is in paper form) has a lot more to keep track of, like when each piece of software was purchased and thus when it expires, and more documentation to dig up when the BSA comes knocking. Plus the BSA is notorious for going after technical violations of licenses where things like moving a hard drive from one machine to another is against the terms, so even though Software In Use == Legal Software Licenses and thus the software vendor got all the money they deserve, the BSA will still force them to pay a fine.

Re:tell them to go fish

[MrNemesis]

Wow, getting your office raided by armed police... on the strength of an anonymous tip-off... for (alledgedly) having unlicensed software?! Call me a cynical commie, but I'm not exactly quaking in my boots that the chain of local corner shops might be using a dodgy version of office. Not that this system is open to abuse or anything...

Hello, BSA? I have reason to believe that my ex-company are using illegal software!
    What?! What's the address?
1 Microsoft Way. They're using using modified GPL code in a *shipping operating system*
    *click*
Was it something I said?

Re:Same again

[Opportunist]

It's more a matter of revenue.

You have a small company that you could either get to buy a handful of licenses or pay a steep fine.
You have a huge company that you could either get to buy a ton of licenses or pay about the same fine.

Question for 500: Which one of those is going to get sued, and which one gets the option to "correct" their licenses?

Re:Expiring licenses

[Simon Brooke]

How many computers do you keep around for 20 years? Same with servers, a 3 year lease leaves you paying for 80% of the value of the product and you get refreshed with new hardware after the term is up. As a result you always have hardware under warranty and you get to take advantage of increased processing ability. Of course not every business grows as fast as the one I'm responsible for. We just started leasing hardware as we're finding it to be far simpler all around. Don't have to worry about Windows or Office licensing, it's all built-in.

Leasing makes a lot of sense, especially when you consider that you're not forced to run the new software on the new hardware. You always have the ability to use an older version. That is the reason a Vista license is valid for XP with a simple phone call if you're a single sap at home or through the VL site if you're a business customer.

Of course you do pay for the convenience but it's quite worth while. That NT4 license from the 90s isn't all the useful to me now. Same with Netware 3, of course I do get a number of servers without an OS and use Debian for my workhorse servers. Then I don't have to worry about expiring licensing and all I have to do is remap the LUN when I get the new server to replace it.

Looking in my server rack, there's nothing there less than eight years old and one machine which is twelve years old (and that one is still serving the same system it served twelve years ago, which says something for stability). All of them except the old one run Debian. The thing is, except for big databases, few server-side tasks are actually that demanding - they're all bandwidth limited, not processor limited (even big database systems are more likely to be IO-bound than mill-bound). I agree a twenty year old machine is still a rarity, but there's really no need to upgrade machines on a three year cycle - unless they aren't doing the job you need them to do.