Slashdot Mirror
Software Piracy At the Beijing Branch Office?
spirit_fingers writes "I'm the IT manager for a west coast design company that has a small branch office in Beijing with 5 employees, a few workstations and a couple of servers. Recently, it came to my attention that the Beijing office has been routinely installing and using pirated software on their computers — MS Office and Adobe Creative Suite, mostly. We're very buttoned up about being legal with our software here at the home office, and I consider it unprofessional and risky for our Beijing office to be engaging in this practice. When I called the local office manager on this, he shrugged and replied, 'Well, every other shop here does it.' So I was wondering if there are any IT manager Slashdotters here in the the US who may have experienced something similar with their colleagues in APAC, and how they handle a situation like this." Click the link for more of this reader's thoughts on the subject.
Up until now, the powers that be here in the States have had a relatively laissez faire attitude about what goes on at the Beijing office and our accounting department hadn't noticed that Beijing never submitted receipts for software, until I questioned them about it.
I have no doubt that "everyone else does it" in that environment. Frankly, I could care less what those guys do with their personal computers, but when it comes to company-owned gear my attitude is to stay legal no matter what anyone else is doing. And it's not like they need to do it to save money: the Beijing branch turns a tidy profit. It just seems to be an attitude so firmly ingrained in the culture over there that no one gives it a second thought.
My response (CC'd to our CFO) was to ask for copies of all receipts and serial numbers for the software they're using. and see what happens. This came down today, so I'll give them a day or two to come up with something.
Up until now, the powers that be here in the States have had a relatively laissez faire attitude about what goes on at the Beijing office and our accounting department hadn't noticed that Beijing never submitted receipts for software, until I questioned them about it.
I have no doubt that "everyone else does it" in that environment. Frankly, I could care less what those guys do with their personal computers, but when it comes to company-owned gear my attitude is to stay legal no matter what anyone else is doing. And it's not like they need to do it to save money: the Beijing branch turns a tidy profit. It just seems to be an attitude so firmly ingrained in the culture over there that no one gives it a second thought.
My response (CC'd to our CFO) was to ask for copies of all receipts and serial numbers for the software they're using. and see what happens. This came down today, so I'll give them a day or two to come up with something.
China is third world? you must be a stupid amelican.
First things first,
Make sure, that under no circumstances, that you post your situation to a popular internet site. That way you can be sure not to draw attention to your circumstances from the people who might investigate... ...oh wait one minute.
>>> It's not like they are stealing anything.
I love how you took slashdotters' favorite argument and turned it against them. There does seem to be a double standard here ("I can download all the music I want! Information should be feee!") ("No, no, pirating software is bad.").
Could ye at least try for some *consistency* in your views? I download stuff, and I freely admit that it's wrong. I'm a thief stealing from the corporate thieves who stole 1500 billion from the U.S. Treasury. I don't deny it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>there has been plenty of infected factory fresh legal software
Like Windows XP. Everytime I have to reinstall XP, I'm faced with this annoying virus that gives me a "Something service has ended. Automatic shutdown in 1 minute."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall