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Crying Foul At the BSA's "Nauseating" Anti-Piracy Tactics
Barence writes "The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has been accused of heavy-handed tactics that could drive small companies to incriminate themselves. The Microsoft-backed piracy watchdog generates a quarter of its cases by offering employees cash rewards for informing on their own employer. 'It is basically harvesting allegations from disgruntled employees and farming them out to expensive law firms,' one small business owner told PC Pro, who said he was 'nauseated' by the tactics. The BSA then sends out a letter demanding the business owner fill out a software audit, or potentially face court action — even though the BSA has no power to demand such an audit and hasn't pursued a court case in five years. 'It's designed to scare the recipient into thinking that they're obliged to provide certain information when, in fact, it's difficult to see that they are,' said a leading IT lawyer."
One of many, many reasons my small business uses linux.
to come up with a nice comparison involving mob protection rackets. truly is a repulsive business practice, right up there with patent trolls and ambulance chasers.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The Microsoft-backed piracy watchdog generates a quarter of its cases by offering employees cash rewards for informing on their own employer.
I don't like the BSA, and I'm pretty neutral about Microsoft, but what is the point of saying the BSA is "Microsoft-backed"? They're also Adobe-, Apple-, and Dell- backed, among many others.
Everything runs on Linux over here, you are not even allowed in the door, and if you try to enter you will be escorted out by a HUGE man that hates authority figures, (i hired him because he is the type that hates authority figures)
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It pretty much fits the definition...
I had a one man consulting company once. In order to appear larger, I often filled out web forms and indicated I had 50 to 100 employees. The BSA sent my company letter with their racketeering scam. I laughed because at the time I was a purely Linux and Mac environment. I wish I had kept that letter.
correction: "Keep it up". Sorry about that. I read it 3 times, but my mind saw what it expected instead of what was already there.
Table-ized A.I.
Sending-out extortionate letters that scare the receiver, for fear they might be drug to court. The only difference is that BSA letters don't demand $5000 bribe.
What scum.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The BSA then sends out a letter demanding the business owner fill out a software audit, or potentially face court action — even though the BSA has no power to demand such an audit and hasn't pursued a court case in five years. 'It's designed to scare the recipient into thinking that they're obliged to provide certain information when, in fact, it's difficult to see that they are,' said a leading IT lawyer."
We've seen this tactic over and over. Any time someone is trying to make a revenue stream off of anything that can be digitally copied. MPAA, RIAA, BSA. Illegally gather information, pretend you're the police, then extort with the threat of a lawsuit.
It's the system that's broken. That's the bigger problem. The parasites that get fat off the system are a symptom. Fix the system.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
They were sending out this letter years ago. If I got a letter like that, I would send them the following reply:
Dear Mr./Ms. xxxxxxxx:
I am in receipt of your letter dated yyyymmdd. I have reviewed our software and it is all in compliance with the licensing. I would like to invite you to our office but we are too busy to accommodate visitors. Thank you for your concern.
Sincerely,
nbauman
I'm not sure how they would respond. I expect they would either forget about it, send a threatening but bluffing letter, or send a real threatening letter. I wouldn't let them into my premises unless I thought they could back it up with a court order.
The defense would be, "The only person who installed illegal software was the ratxxx disgruntled employee who rattedxxxxxx informed on us to you."
Of course if I really did have a lot of expensive illegal software, I'd check with my lawyer to figure out the most prudent response.
I wonder how they could legally force you to let them investigate.
They might bring a civil suit and force disclosure. Lawyers are extremely reluctant to commit perjury for their clients in discovery.
HA Awesome - I'm so reporting every company I've ever worked for.. KACHING!... (all open source companies!)
This site has had a lot of MS hating editors for a long time.
No, I'm NOT flame baiting mods, so leave it alone. Now anyways, how is this any different than, say, offering a reward towards the solving of any other crime... theft, murder, whatever. So Microsoft pays people to report on what, technically (i.e. according to the law) is illegal, and you have a problem with that... do you have a problem with people paying to help solve crimes in general? Or is it just because MS or copyright is involved (these are dirty words here on Slashdot...)
I myself participated in one of these software audits on the local high school and it wasn't some horrific nightmare, none of us viewed it as a violation of our inalienable rights, or whatever nauseatin form of torture TFA is making the process out to be. We found 50 or so unlicensed softwares and got that fixed, we self-reported and didn't get penalized. and MS has a right to be compensated for its products, especially since we were receiving support from them for various services.
Seriously; I can think of one or two companies I've worked for, who illegally use MS and other proprietary products, that I would cherish the opportunity to return the fucking they gave me when I was wrongfully terminated for calling them out on their crimes.
Had I realized that I can actually be compensated for narcing on the rat bastards, I'd have done it years ago...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
In many developing countries, the software industry deliberately allowed piracy to run wild for a few years. This ensured that even small/poor companies would buy PCs and install the very best/latest/most expensive commercial tools on them, and get used to doing business with these tools. Then the BSA (backed diplomatically by the U.S./Canada/EU - or in other words "the ever-altruistic Western Powers") lobbied/armwrestled many developing world governments into letting the BSA raid companies with their lawyers. So one minute you were in an environment where nobody cared what software your company installed. The next minute, the BSA knocked your front door down with a threatening-sounding court order and a small army of lawyers, and demanded that you "pay up" for every bit of software installed on various PCs around the office. This was a few years before most open source tools became good enough to use. In the long-term, this has backfired mightily, because the scathing experience of having your office raided by BSA droids/lawyers has driven lots of businesses in the developing world to look seriously at Open Source tools.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Since you say you're not trolling I'll take you at your word and give you my best answer.
It's not the "what", it's the "how".
The "what" is someone getting fairly paid for their work. Which they have every right to do. Microsoft, the artists represented by the RIAA, everyone. You produce something of value and ask a price for it, you deserve to be paid. Or not be paid if the price is too high. Let the market decide. But either way you deserve to be in that marketplace and not sidestepped illegally.
The "how" is the problem.
What these organizations are doing is criminal. Pretending to be the police is illegal. Threats are illegal. Extortion is illegal. Racketeering is illegal. And lobbying for our rights to be taken away because they diminish their ability to monitor what everyone - guilty and innocent alike - are up to is wrong. The cure is worse than the disease.
To illustrate my point, I'm pretty sure we both would agree that unregistered guns are used in a lot of violent crime. So do you think it would be reasonable to have a local group of concerned citizens search your house looking for some? Hand you some forms demanding you list what weapons you do have, and tell you that if you have any guns that aren't properly registered, you'll be in trouble? Offer bribes to people you know and offer them cash if they can recall seeing you with a gun?
You see, it's not what they are doing but how they are going about it that is the problem.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I distinctly remember in about 1999 I was walking through O'Hare airport and I saw an advertisement from the BSA posted on the wall. It had the caption, "Stab Your Boss in the Back," and a picture of a guy in a 3-piece suit with a knife in his back. I kick myself for not getting a photo of the sign. I have been hunting for a reliable record of this advertisement in vain.
So, anyone who can find a picture, or other testimony to that nasty BSA ad will be a hero.
There's a small chance that I remember wrong. Like Mark Twain, I have an excellent memory. I remember good things, and some of them happened.
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Only problem is that BSA only screws small/mid size companies. I'm sure someone can turn this into a conspiracy lawsuit against them - since when have they gone after large companies? Never.
I know of at least two people who reported piracy to BSA, and BSA's response to the person who reported it was "we do not see any evidence of piracy".
Relying on people to report crime / rulebreaking is generally how the system works. If employers want to run the risk of using software without paying, then they need to accept the responsibility of being caught. Most companies would probably end up paying for licenses if they are 'caught' and get a letter so the system works in favour of the publishers. The alternative is to use OSS and whilst it is adequate for many jobs, paid for software still beats OSS in many situations; photo, audio & video editing where I am concerned.
Besides, is this any worse than the UK government offering £500 for people shopping benefit cheats?
http://www.bsa.org/country/BSA%20and%20Members/Our%20Members.aspx
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Since they haven't pursued a court case in 5 years it would seem they simply drop shit if people don't agree to pay them.
Now I'm not saying don't use OSS, but it won't change the outcome of something like this at all between using licensed commercial software.
For that matter if you actually agreed to their bullshit audit (you shouldn't but saying you did) it would probably make life more difficult. If you have all your commercial software boxes n' licenses, they are pretty well stymied. I know a number of small businesses who do just that, not because they are worried about BSA audits but just because they want to keep all their computer stuff organized. They have a big box with all the relevant stuff that BSA would be able to quickly look through. With OSS of course there'd be none of that, and also their scanning tools probably don't support Linux so they'd make a nuisance of themselves trying to find pirated software that didn't exist.
Bull Shit of America...
Arkell v. Pressdram:
"We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off."
At least, it was in 2009 according to these guys: http://scottandscottllp.com/main/BSA_Dirty_Tricks_Update.aspx
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Dear BSA,
It has been a subject of much hilarity in this office that we should be sent a threatening letter from yourselves, a self-authority in software licensing with little to no legal authority to follow through on your threat.
However, for your records it should be noted that as a registered company of Legal Advocates (Company #07248227), one of the things we tend to do is ensure that we operate completely legally. As software goes, this means the purchase of license keys as and when necessary. While we are not at liberty to discuss details for reasons of client information security and more to the point, national security, we can assure you and your employers at Microsoft and Adobe that our licenses are copasetic. When you can show the following, we would gladly participate in a full audit, at your expense and on your time:
1. SCI-5 clearance signed by the Minister for Defence and the Home and Foreign Secretaries;
2. Written Royal assent for the potential of disclosure of information which could affect the safety and security of Royal members, Crown properties and/or Subjects;
3. A commitment to Non-Disclosure under Section 4 of the Official Secrets Act 1989, by persons thereto authorised to carry out the audit;
4. Assent by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales to cover the potential disclosure of information pertaining to live in camera proceedings;
5. Reference to the Authority of Law by which the BSA operate;
6. Reference to the Authority of Law which compels ourselves as individuals and the Company as a Legal entity to co-operate with a private concern whose singular purpose seems to be the extraction of money from legitimate businesses and individuals with zero return.
When (not before) all the above conditions are met, shall we even consider further correspondence.
Good Day to you, Sir.
-
Their response:
Sir,
We acknowledge receipt of your counteroffer, and hereby inform you that no further action shall be taken.
Faithfully,
pp.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
While hunting for material on BSA, I found the most concentrated anti-BSA material here: http://www.bsadefense.com/main/index.aspx
This is a law firm that makes money defending businesses against BSA, so you can be as skeptical as you like. As far as I read, their claims agree with what I have learned elsewhere.
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Any business owner should have a detailed register of their assets soft and hard. The register should be up to date, and it should be readily auditable. If you're serious about your business, the response to the BSA should be:
Here is our register - showing the dates that we have regularly internally audited it. Oh, and from a software perspective, here is our policy regarding workstation rebuilds to obliterate non-company software - and our log of workstation rebuilds. Oh, and here is our staff policy that makes employees responsible for any illegal/unlicensed software on their workstations. Feel free to come and audit our register at your own expense.
Any business that is not in a position to make this statement is not serious about being a business. I own a thriving software house and we have such a register, policies, etc. Let's face it folks - we're in IT. This kind of thing is almost trivial to set up - and it is relatively easy to maintain.
You surely deserve the hero award for finding this one. I distinctly remember a knife, and a whole body in a suit, rather than a nail and a tie. My memory may be off, or there may have been variations. They are both pretty nasty, and suggest revenge far more than justice.
Mike O'Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~odonnell/
Your post demonstrates that well with going for the "Vista DRM" shit. That vague argument is composed of nothing more than misunderstanding of how Blu-ray licensing works (as in it requires secure driver paths, or you can't play it, period) combined with complete misinformation repeated from Peter Gutmann (who claimed Vista can't record high def sound, it can, I have used it and 7 to do so on many occasions). Some people on Slashdot, the editors in particular, go looking for reason to hate MS, rather than having good reasons for hating MS. Other companies that pull worse shit get ignored.
I would never claim MS is perfect, because I'd never claim any company is perfect. However the MS hate is entirely disproportionate to what they do and is often composed of bullshit (as with the Vista DRM thing).
That you don't like anyone who's in the IP business doesn't mean your dislike is valid.
I really don't get that. As I understand it, even if you are 100% in the right, you still have to pay the BSA's legal fees.
It's some special law, made up just for the BSA.
Ernie Ball (The guitar people) left Microsoft years ago because of these tactics. http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
Dear BSA:
Your Audit Software failed to install. I had our senior system administrator take a look at it and he said it wasn't compatible with Wine. I asked him if maybe it would work with Beer. He gave be some puzzled look and mumbled something about a "DEB or RPM version". Do you know what he might be talking about?
(signed) Bob, senior PHB.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You deserve what you get.
Ever since its inception, BSA is nothing but crap
Back in the 1990's, they have sent me threatening emails and letters - without even haven't proven that I have pirated anything
Back then I attended some CAD/CAM seminars offered by Audodesk - and in those events they handed out forms in which we filled in our names, company names, email address, snailmail address and so on
Before I attended those seminars, I got no threatening email nor letters filled with legalese jargons, threatening to take me to court for "using unauthorized software"
I mean, it's a total fuck
I attended those seminars to learn more about CAD/CAM, it does not mean I own any CAD/CAM software, but of course, BSA doesn't care
They just took the name list from the seminar organizers and mass-mailing the threatening letters
After those encounters, I stopped attending any Autocad seminar and in a few years, those threatening letters also stopped coming
BSA's way of handling their customers, even potential customers, is totally ridiculous
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Write a nice letter to each of the BSA members, thanking them for their concern and assuring them that, just to be sure, you will remove all copies of their software from your computers and will not use their software in the future.
If you are a business why not make it into a money making opportunity with a reply along the lines of "Thank you for interest in hiring us to take part in your software audit. We would be happy to assist you and our estimated costs are included. In addition, since the audit may require access to computers with sensitive information you will be required to sign the enclosed NDA.".
This way you have shown due diligence in responding and even agreed to the audit....of course I doubt they will take you up on the offer!
They got a fancy name, but all they are doing is using a con-man's trick to get you to buy licenses from them. Tell them to pound sand. They are a sales company pure and simple. Linux and Libre office for the win.
However the MS hate is entirely disproportionate to what they do.
It is entirely appropriate and proportional. The fact that you can't see that says more about you than the so-called "haters" - a marketing term.
Well, I'm the IT manager for a belgian company that got raided by the BSA without any notice given. They brought 2 lawyers, 1 bailiff & his assistant & 2 independent court experts.
The judge gave the OK for the raid although the claim entered was absolute nonsense. They claimed we used twice as many illegal MS Office licenses as we had employees (that's very likely indeed), that we used backup software I never heard of before (how did they come to that conclusion?), autoCAD (wtf does a software development company use autoCAD for?) and so on & so forth.
Of the things they were targeting, they found no violations, but as with any growing company, we had a few other slipups in their audit. I don't actually mind being fined for those slip-ups. We were at fault here.
HOWEVER, the BSA also found us in violation for the following:
- VMs that were not active (Microsoft licensing terms state that powered off VMs are not to be counted towards the licenses (that's an oversimplification on my part, but as we all know explaining the full situation & MS licensing terms would take an essay))
- One of our developers was migrating from an old laptop to a new one. His Visual Studio & Adobe software were counted double & thus in violation.
- Laptops of ex-employees were removed from storage (they were meant to be scratched/imaged) and any software found on those were counted as not in compliance.
Now, most of these things would easily be thrown out in court. However, the BSA had our servers and computers that were not in compliance according to their supposed "independent" experts (which were not even aware of anything called a Microsoft Action Pack & MSDN licenses) were sealed. VMWare ESXi servers that also have images of supposed violations were fully sealed by the bailiff as well, not only the supposedly offending image. If we wanted to take our case to court, the computers would have remained sealed until the court date which would be months away. Now that would mean bankruptcy for most companies of course, so we negociated all night, until we reached a settlement & ended up paying for things that were clearly not in violation, but we could simply not take this to court due to the hostage taking tactics of the BSA. The sealing of evidence later turned out to be illegal by the way, but little did we know...
To add insult to injury: Not only did we get raided, but also any unassociated company that our CEO was a shareholder of was also raided. There was no evidence and no witness statement (as it was solely aimed at our own company) whatsoever against those companies, but they got raided anyway.
So no, the "license" does NOT give them grounds to investigate.
'sfunny too. All that bollocks about "Total Cost Of Ownership" from MS and the cost of a BSA audit isn't in there...
Aside from pre-loaded firmware on devices, I do not us any commercial software in my (small) company anymore. Its just too risky and I can get by quite decently with open source packages and a few small custom-built things.
Nuff said
Anyone can demand anything. What they don't have is the power to compel the business to actually do the audit. In order to convince the business to do the audit, the BSA threats to sue them. You know, just like when some company is accused of violating the GPL, the copyright holder demands to see the source code with a threat of suit and then sues when they are rejected.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Why does the summary single out Microsoft? The article also mentions Adobe and the BSA website lists a number of companies, including AVG, CA, Intel, and Apple.
Are the submitter and editors bating the anti-MS folks and trying to start flame wars?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Why do not people use the electromagnetic force (magnet) to deflect the asteroid.
Here's how.
Using the principle of the space ship (estimated number) carries the electromagnetic force (functioning as an electromagnet). First, we have tied up a device that meteorites of male legs or monitoring a magnetic plate, then use the space ship to carry the magnet gap and give them enough work, based on the thrust of the magnet, so the space ship was acting on a force meteorites (doing so, we spacecraft control every iteration) until the asteroid were to turn.
Note when we change the direction of the asteroid must be very distant, and towards the largest planet in our solar system (Jupiter), taking advantage of its gravity to reduce the labor of the probes head, and there may come a time that celestial bodies on the planet working on collision just created to help scientists observe, simultaneously cleaning them no longer wander the universe itself.
advantages of this method:
- The space ship above can be used multiple times, for the other meteorites.
- Cleaning them, because they are attracted to the large planets.
- Take advantage of the gravity of large planets.
- Can the pilot at sea prior to practice.
Example: Using the large ship to the asteroid, then use small vessels to spacecraft (as a percentage of gravity has been calculated before).
Above is just a brief, if you are interested then I will explain in detail.
Because my english level is not good, if you are interested to my idea, I ask you translated into English and sent to NASA scientists. I sincerely thank you.
SDT: 0974259655 Email field: nguyendung43cb@yahoo.com
If someone reports to you that I have been in your pool while you are at work, do you really think you can come to my door expecting that I prove to you otherwise? Do you really think you can threaten me with letters from attorneys thinking I will permit you to come in my home so you can ransack my clothes hamper so that you can sniff my laundry for errant chlorine? All of this on the word of an unsworn witness that may just not like me because I have a job and he doesn't?
Good luck with that. Next time bring the police. And a warrant.
If an entity has no authority to demand information from your business, you shouldn't give it to them.
If you can't think of many legitimate reasons why, then you shouldn't have a business OR a job.