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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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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 !