Let's say I'm an IT manager at a small business, and I've got 27 projects vying for my attention. Why should auditing and keeping track of software licenses be a priority?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of issues out there, to the point where software-licensing compliance often drops off the corporate checklist. It's important for us to break through some of that noise with examples of what it might cost a company if they don't manage their licences.
I think the answer lies in the fact that there are serious legal consequences. And there are a number of practical reasons for companies to make sure their software is properly managed. If you don't have a compliance program in place, you increase the risk of installing virus-ridden software or software that doesn't work as intended, and you lose a lot of benefits as far as technical support.
So is your advice to just make tracking licences part of somebody's job?
Absolutely. Most of the companies we end up contacting are not bad companies. They do most things right; they're honest companies. They just need to treat this issue more seriously. It's almost always the case that the reason the company has this kind of problem is not bad record-keeping or a deliberate attempt to cut corners -- it's just inattention to the issue.
Some would say it's also because software licenses are so darn complicated nobody can keep track of what they're supposed to be doing.
I'm a lawyer, and I'm sympathetic to people who say some of these licences are difficult to understand. But there's often no ambiguity in that one paragraph that sets out your right to install and use that software on a limited number of computers. In those cases where companies take a single copy of a software program and install it on all their computers, it's not because of confusion over the terms of the licence agreement.
Talkback
"From the perspective of the software company having its product used without recompense, there's not a lot of difference. It's like if somebody steals my car, I don't really care if they drive it and enjoy it or if they abandon it by the side of the road -- either way, I'm out a car."
No! This is wrong! The whole reason intellectual property is legally distinct from property as a whole is that you can copy it without removing the original owner's enjoyment of it.
How someone of this level of importance in the practical side of intellectual property can make such a basic mistake is beyond me. Is he's doing it for effect without being concerned about the niceties of fact?
Jez
<i>"So is your advice to just make tracking licences part of somebody's job?
Absolutely. Most of the companies we end up contacting are not bad companies. They do most things right; they're honest companies. They just need to treat this issue more seriously."</i>
Yeah.
Audit all desktop computer and laptops. Make a list of the contects of each HD, CD and floppy disks. Compare the installed softwares with your licenses. Repeat this procedure every three months.
OR... use Free/Open Source Software: it's less expensive; it's more secure; it's better; there is no piracy.
<i>"It's like if somebody steals my car, I don't really care if they drive it and enjoy it or if they abandon it by the side of the road -- either way, I'm out a car."</i>
Uh... no.
If I a copy of a software, the original is not lost.
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." (George Bernard Shaw)
At the back of both the BSA and FAST is the burning desire to get statutory right of inspection / auditing. In some ways this might even be a good thing: After all you can at least negotiate with the Inland Revenue! Every time I get a call from either of these outfits I feel like I am personally on trial and anything I say can and will be taken down etc etc. and end up banged up for 10 years because I have an unlicensed font somewhere. Yet they are not the police, nor anything like. Their tactics are easily into the realm of harassment. For those of us with OSL agreements they are also unable to explain why we effectively have to pay for Windows twice every time we buy a PC.