BSA explains its ethos

A nonprofit trade group formed by more than a dozen major software makers -- including Microsoft, Adobe Systems and Autodesk -- the BSA is charged with enforcing licensing and copyright protections. Personal contact with the software group usually comes in the form of a "software audit," in which the BSA, often acting on a tip from an angry current or former employee, combs through a company's PC stock, matching installed programs with licences. Companies that come up short can be forced to pay big fines and buy tons of new licences.

But BSA executives say the group's role isn't to be the tough guy. Instead, they're around to protect the interests of software makers, through a combination of enforcement action, education and governmental lobbying.

Educational efforts include advertising campaigns designed to make IT managers sweat and periodic surveys on the state of international software piracy. The latest survey, which pegged international losses due to software piracy at more than $29bn (£16bn) a year, has drawn criticism from pundits and trade groups such as the Consumer Electronics Association, for allegedly inflating loss estimates by counting every stolen program as a lost sale.

Many of the same critics have already clashed with the BSA over its lobbying on behalf of the several legislative measures, including the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act , which would effectively outlaw file-sharing networks.

Given the BSA's complex and sometimes confrontational role, Bob Kruger, vice president of enforcement for the organisation, doesn't necessarily expect to be every IT guy's best buddy. But he maintains the BSA does valuable and necessary work to keep the software industry healthy.

"We've always viewed education and understanding as the key to promoting compliance with copyright requirements," Kruger said in an interview with ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com. "Even our enforcement programme is geared to raising awareness. We don't enforce for the sake of enforcement. We pursue these actions mainly to illustrate the consequences of failure to respect copyright requirements."

Q: What's Microsoft role in the BSA -- some IT folks refer to you as "the Microsoft police?"
A: That's an unfortunate perception. We have 13 global members now and every one of them, from my perspective and the perspective of the BSA staff, is equally important. Only one member from a tech company sits on the BSA board; only one member from each company sits on the BSA committee. Every decision we make is made by all members.

Microsoft may be a bigger company than many of the other BSA members, but they all have this piracy problem in common. All the work we do is geared toward benefiting not just these companies but the software industry as a whole. Within the BSA, there are companies such as Autodesk and Adobe that make very popular products, and those products get pirated and impact those companies every bit as much as Microsoft's products do.