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

Same again

[Wowsers]

It's the same situation in the UK, the little guys get screwed over software licenses that for example, may have expired and nobody keeping an eye on things, whilst the big companies have big lawyers to get away with it.

Should make Linux a bit more of an interesting proposition.

I have been in an Audit once

[QuantumRiff]

We got "anonymously tipped" a week after I took over the job of an incompetent admin, who was in charge of all the licensing, and kept telling everyone it was fine to install this and that, when it wasn't. The fun thing was that even if/when you pay the fine, you have to get back into compliance. I remember calling around to MS about some licensing issues for SQL server. Talked to 3 different people, got 3 totally different answers about how many licenses we would need. I read the info from a script, to make sure I was keeping it the same. If the company that SELLS the damn software can't understand their own licensing, how can they expect us to? We ended up having our lawyers and the BSA lawyers figure it out.

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: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:If you're being raided...

[Cheerio Boy]

I'm going to go ahead and guess the violations resulting in a "raid" were far more egregious than your example. More like, say- the company I used to work for that bought a single license of Office 2000 and installed it on 150 users' machines. Had we been busted, I would hardly describe it as a good customer getting screwed because of paperwork. Sorry but in more than one place I've worked the management at the time got info from the other small businesses that got raided. (Customers, suppliers, etc.) The majority of them were raided either because of a disgruntled employee snitching to the BSA or because the business in question was stupid enough to answer one of the BSA's infamous letters and tell told them that they were "in compliance and did not need their services".

Either way in a lot of cases the Bullsh!t Stealing Alliance raided them and hosed them seriously for minor infractions.

The only ones that didn't get hosed were the ones that up and paid a fine outright. Sound familiar?

tell them to go fish

[SuperBanana]

'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...

If the BSA ever shows up at your door, unless they have a court order, tell them to get lost. If they refuse, slam the door in their face and call the police. Write down every license plate number you can see.

For extra giggles, when you call the police, complain that the people who won't leave are dressed like police officers (the BSA guys wear those black nylon rain jackets with big yellow letters to try and look like government agents), and if they're armed, make sure to mention that too. Cops don't take kindly to people pretending to be them.