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Software Piracy At the Workplace?
An anonymous reader writes "What does one do when a good portion of the application software at your workplace is pirated? Bringing this up did not endear me at all to the president of the company. I was given a flat 'We don't pirate software,' and 'We must have paid for it at some point.' Given that I was only able to find one burnt copy of Office Pro with a Google-able CD-Key, and that version of Office is on at least 20 computers, I'm not convinced. Some of the legit software in the company has been installed on more than one computer, such as Adobe Acrobat. Nevertheless I have been called on to install dubious software on multiple occasions. As for shareware, what strategies do you use to convince management to allow the purchase of commonly used utilities? If an installation of WinZip reports thousands of uses, I think the software developer deserves a bit o' coin for it. When I told management that WinZip has a timeout counter that counts off one second per file previously opened, they tried to implement a policy of wait for it, do something else, and come back later, rather than spend the money. Also, some software is free for home and educational use only, like AVG Free. What do you when management ignores this?"
Do what you're told. Look for another job.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
For utilities like winzip, replace them with open source stuff like 7zip. Explain that it's ok to be used for commercial use, and it avoids annoying licensing costs. As for the other stuff, shoot an email to your management about it and print it out. If they refuse to listen, at least you have a hard copy on record showing that you tried to warn them. Then, if anything ever happens legally you've tried to notify them and you can't get canned. If they do, they'll have a hefty wrongful termination lawsuit on their hands. If it really bothers you, find a new job and call the BSA. Tattletale. :-P
If they're dishonest in one area, well, they're dishonest, period. You'll get dicked over if you stay there. Frankly, I have no qualms about calling the BSA about places like this....
Do you have ESP?
Instead of accsing the company of piracy (even if they're guilty), use another approach.
Say, I'm concerned that renewing future licenses will be very expensive. Say, the 1,000 copies of Winzip at $30 each is $30,000. 7-zip is a free alternative that actually works better, and will save the company $30,000 the new time those licenses need to be renewed. Alnd OpenOffice saves $400 per license over MS Office. OpenOffice comes with free PDF export functionality, which saves the $500 Acrobat license.
You may get approval to install free, legal alternatives and get rid of the pirated software. Even better, instead of being seen as the problem (the person who has a moral objection to their piracy), you'll be seen as a solution.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The ethical thing to do at this stage in the game is to drop a dime on'em. The sensible thing to do is to ensure that you still have an income afterwards. Count on the boss finding out and retaliating; whether that is illegal or not, factor that into your plans.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
In office environments like this, management's stand is very unlikely to change. Trying to change their minds will be an exercise in futility, so you need to just focus your decision making on whether or not you are willing to stick around and be a part of it, or would rather look for another job.
Shawn Asmussen
I am a sysadm/web developer for a smallish manufacturing business. When I got here, there licensing was a complete and utter mess. They had about half the number of Office licenses as needed (And half of those were Home/Student Edition), they had a centralized AV solution that they were still getting updates for but hadn't paid for in three years, and just overall were NOT compliant.
I brought it to the company president's attention. Buying 40 Office licenses at a time (Probably around $10000 for Small Business) as well as 70-80 AV subscriptions (Maybe another $2000), and various other server and client software (Around $12,000 more) was not something they wanted to do. They did agree to take it slow and get legit over a period of time. During that period, I did install Office on more machines but they bought the licenses over a period of 18 months. In the end, I am happy to say we are nearly 100% compliant.
So I guess instead of going to him with a HUGE bill, maybe write up a plan to go legit over the next year or two. They may balk at a one time large sum of money but be willing to pay $1000 here, $2000 there or something. Worked for me. If the company is too cheap to even do that, you probably aren't going to you as an employee and are probably better off starting to look around....
Don't think that the company president who "didn't know he was using pirated software" won't serve you up as the sacrificial lamb to the Powers That Be in a heartbeat when some disgruntled ex-employee rats to the BSA. At that point, you'll be out of a job the hard way, with the kind of black stain on a record that no young IT guy wants to have.
It doesn't work quite like this. Microsoft has no more right to demand an audit of your systems than you do of their systems. They can only demand an audit if you've already agreed to do so in a licensing agreement you consented to. Generally, if you get a corporate site license or possibly other volume licensing from MS, you have agreed to on demand audits. If all the MS software you have came with the machines (like Windows and often Office) or you bought shrinkwrap versions, you don't have to agree to anything unless they have a court order.
-ec
A trip down memory lane:
"Selling games is strictly self-serving also. Apparently, you think its fantastic for companies to be driven by greed, but the customers should be selfless? Same old shit as the banks - capitalise the profit, socialise the loss."
(damburger 24 Oct Score: 5)
"In what you gave as an analogy, the hypothetical person STOLE food from the restaurant- the restaurant is out the food and drink the person took by not paying. In the case of infringement, someone merely takes a copy thereof- and nobody's out anything save maybe a cash transaction that might or might not have happened. They're not out their original copy, so it's not theft."
(Svartalk 24 Oct Score: 5)
"If I copy something that an artist produced, it doesn't cost that artist either time or effort. The time and effort has already been spent, they have no way of getting it back.
The only possibility is that they might get payment in compensation for it. As long as anything I do does not affect their chance of getting this compensation, I see no possible way in which it can be immoral. Therefore, as long as I can be sure that I am not going to pay for a copy, I see no way that making my own copy is immoral."
(julesh 24 Oct Score: 4)
"Yeah just like getting bit by an ant 'hurts' me, but not really. It's just an ant. Nothing to have a hissy-fit over like IRAA and the BSA seem to be having.
BSA: 'Oh noes! We've been bit an ant. The end is nigh'
US: 'Stop being a wuss.'"
(commodore64_love 12 Oct Score: 4)
I think what's going on here is most people see business purchases of commercial software as a way to justify their own piracy, like this person:
"Through college I had the full version of Matlab/Simulink. I used toolboxes that the school didn't have when doing class projects. I learned everything I could about it and the toolboxes available.
Now, 6 years later, I was able to talk my boss into buying a few extra special toolboxes for the work we do. Something close to $30k a seat a year. Had I never 'pirated' all that software I would have never been able to sell my self to my company, nor sell my company on Matlab toolboxes."
(0100010001010011 12 Oct Score: 4)
Obviously said by someone who's never put a lot of work into a program, video, script, or anything else that requires creative work, then wondered why he wasn't making money on it.
If I build a house, I get paid by the people who use it. If I put the same effort into, say, a film script, that might take anywhere from 6 weeks to a year to write, why should people get it for free?
Interesting how the kiddies who've never had to work for a living thing they should get everything for free and don't have the backbone to produce anything worthwhile in exchange. They're the real users or AOLusers -- use and use and too impotent to produce on their own.
Not necessarily.
If it's within your purview, you can always try ordering licenses for the software in question, or submitting the purchase request through proper channels. When asked why, explain that you cannot find any licensing information, and you're looking to protect the company's interests.
That said, it's not your job to make policy, nor is it your responsibility to protect the financial interests of the publishers of the software in question.
So, keep a record of all of your meetings and document all conversations you had with any superiors regarding the situation. Obviously you don't want to include any especially damning details one way or the other -- your goal here is not retribution, it's job and career security. If you said nothing to management about a problem you knew about, then you're at fault. At the same time, you don't want to take the fall if/when someone reports your company. Keeping records will help to defend against either scenario, and improve your job prospects should you be "let go." It's evidence that you were trying to be a team player. CYA -- Cover Your Ass -- but don't rock the boat unless you're prepared for the consequences when everyone ends up in the water (including yourself).
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Ok this is a blatant troll but I'll bite anyway. Copyright is not theft. Endless copyright may be wrong but that will change eventually. In the mean time we have laws and I still want to get paid. So whether you think so or not, copyrights and patents are there for a reason most of which involve me being able to eat and make the rent in order to continue to produce more software for you (collective not getting personal) to pirate.
Why bother
Wow. What a great justification of illegal activity. Sorry, but djheru is right. Threatening to report illegal activity unless it is stopped is not blackmail. Threatening to report it unless I get some money is, but blackmail involves the blackmailer benefiting.
You've basically made the argument that no one ever has the right to threaten to go to the police if the criminal activity doesn't stop. That's beyond absurd.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The better (business) solution is to speak to management in terms they can understand - money.
I'm not saying that they need to feel threatened. Instead, point out that you are looking out for the interests of the company and want to ensure all bases are covered in the event of a short-notice software audit.
Then you outline a plan to audit the computers on your network and a plan for remediation (buying licenses, uninstalling software, and/or using some sort of network-wide metering package). Again, this should be done with the focus on how much this will cost the company versus not complying and getting caught with unlicensed software. Remember, management really only cares about budgets and how much of it needs to be expended. It might also help to explain that your own ass is on the line as the IT admin and that, by formally notifying management (you *are* documenting this formally, right?), they are just as culpable if/when a BSA audit occurs.
Part of a good admin's job is to audit the environment regularly for such things, anyway. Even if no action is taken on the findings, at least you know where you're starting from when action ultimately does need to be taken - for any sort of project, not just software license management.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
You make a pretty big leap, saying that disagreeing with the current application of intellectual property laws is the same as not believing in ownership of private property.
If you make something, you deserve to charge money for it. It's a big jump to then say that your great great great grandchildren should also make money from it. An even bigger jump to say that you can transfer your rights to someone else who can then make money from it in perpetuity and an even bigger jump to say that the people who buy your product don't really own it but are only leasing it for however long you say and not a moment longer.
The notion that intellectual property rights have certain limits, especially on the length of time you can claim those rights has been part of the laws of copyright and patent for a very long time. Given the ephemeral nature of ideas, this makes sense and has been a system that works. It's only since certain people, usually not the people who actually come up with the ideas, have started trying to assert longer and longer copyright periods, limiting the rights of the purchaser and coming up with perverted notions such as "licensing" products to consumers instead of "selling" those products, that there has been a serious pushback from consumers.
Making things and buying and selling those things is a two-way transaction that has been part of the social contract for a long time. Recently, one side of that transaction has decided to assert their financial power by making the rules of the transaction less equitable. That has caused many people on the other side of the transaction to believe the whole setup is bad, which leads to widespread rulebreaking.
You can say that the people breaking the rules are criminals or communists or even terrorists, but it would be easier to swallow these assertions if those on the supply side of the transaction had acted in good faith from the beginning. Unfortunately, "taking advantage of a powerful position" has become a sacred rite in the religion of free market economics. So, you end up with a surprising number of people who lose respect for the entire transaction. Maybe it's in the nature of human societies that every so often, when a transaction becomes unbalanced, that there is a widespread breakdown in following the rules which escalates until the system can be retooled. This seems to be what's happening in the realm of "intellectual property" (and, I can argue, in the entire system we know as "capitalism").
Behaviors that should have ended with feudalism now become "good business practice". No wonder so many people now believe that all of free market economics is a scam. One thing for sure, it's unlikely the system is going to be fixed by escalating the inequity of the transaction.
You are welcome on my lawn.
(Please bear in mind that I didn't read the grandpappy post, just the bit you quoted and your response.)
The FOSS movement does not equate the two concepts "a particular configuration of 1s and 0s" and "creat[ing that sequence of 1s and 0s] as you need them" as you have. The problem is in the notion of doing something cool once and then making money off of it for the rest of your life when there is zero cost to mass produce (i.e., make digital copies). This is where the FOSS movement and I part ways a bit, because FOSS says that it's "unethical" to do this. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I know if the cost of mass producing something is negligible, it's certainly impractical at the very least.
From the standpoint of a healthy capitalist society, I regard software more as a service (and don't confused SaaS here, I'm talking about box software like Windows) than a product. Capitalism is supposed to reward people for doing useful work. Patents and copyrights were originally conceived to do this, but over time they've become more and more about allowing one to rest on one's laurels and live a life of luxury for having done that one cool thing. I'm not exactly sure where this expectation of entitlement comes from...what other line of work doesn't require you to show up everyday to get a paycheck?
The "service" part of software comes in the form of extension and support. If I make something cool and release it for free, I may be paid to support it (ongoing labor), or even extend it (short-term labor at a particular customer's behest). Even in the case of being paid to do an extension I otherwise would not have done, I as the developer and strongly incented to release it for free to all because it presumably makes my original software more valuable and will drive further business.
Not coincidentally, this is actually how most commercial software companies actually work. I used to work for a well-known company that made marketing software, and they would routinely cut their prices 50%, even up to 90% to make a big sale. That sounds crazy until you understand the logic of it, which was to lock up the far more valuable support contract. In other words, what the market was saying is that the software itself wasn't valuable to customers—the support and ability to get feature requests answered, on the other hand, was. And so the pricing structure reflected that...give (or nearly give) the software away, and charge the real bucks for what the buyer is actually willing to pay for.
This happened on nearly every deal at that company, and it led me to wonder why they even bothered with charging at all...why not just give it away for free download on the website? Sure, a lot of small fish that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it would start using it without ever paying a dime into the system...but so what? We weren't going to make money off of them anyway, and by removing the barrier to entry we open the door to at least small or one-time support fees, get better feedback for laying out our roadmap, and potentially deprive a competitor of a sale, increasing our own marketshare.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.