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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.
EVERYONE in China massively pirates all software.
Seriously, the company I work for has facilities in China and everything we don't specifically buy and install is pirated over there.
If you want something to happen, try reporting the situation to the Beijing branch manager, and CC a higher-up of appropriate stature at the home office.
Speaking as a Chinese, and having much dealings with my kind, I can say that Chinese people will shit a brick when it comes to potentially pissing off a higher-up in the States.
I've had to deal with this situation more times than I care for in the last 10 years. Its a very big legal hassle for your company, and their are raids every few years. Not enough to scare the Asian work force into compliance, but its enough of a game of corporate Russian roulette that the risk just isn't worth it.
Not only are many of the Asian offices using pirated software, but are not running any antivirus software. I've routinely tracked down about 80% of all infections at my client offices to their e-mails with their overseas counterparts or from when they are traveling in Asia on business.
Also, much of the pirated versions of the software are riddled with trojans, spyware, and security holes galore. Allowing them to use that software further opens up your entire company up to a breach or leak of information.
I've also seen more than one company fold or nearly go under because one disgruntled person called in an anonymous tip that their current or former companies software was not legit.
In a corporate environment, getting the documentation and legal software is definitely the IT managers job, and an obvious C.Y.A. for anyone in the I.T. department and the company officers... Its those heads that will roll if the B.S.A. shows up with the authorities to audit you.
bullshit, it's illegal to copy any copyrighted software in russia.. the only question is will you get punished for doing this or not. this happens because copyright law can be enforced only by owner of such software registered within RU itself. so if say, adobe, has no representation in russian federation, then this just cannot be prosecuted by russian law (no intl treaties, correct, but this can and will change), because law clearly states that only copyright holder can protect their property.
IANAL, but this is how this works in RU.
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List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita
China, People's Republic of: $5,325, rank: 100
United States: rank: $45,725, rank: 6
Clear enough?
"GIMP has no CMYK support" is in the same category as "You will lose copyright on anything made with GPL software". It is constantly being repeated by Microsoft marketing people despite being obviously false.
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