The BSA announced on Friday that it is raising the ceiling on payments to whistleblowers to £20,000 for reports received during November and December this year. Under the BSA's rules, someone who reports that a company is using illegal software -- such as counterfeit or unlicensed programs -- will receive a reward of 10 percent of the face value of the software recovered.
Previously, this payment was capped at £10,000.
The BSA is hoping that this offer of a larger maximum reward will force companies which are using illegal software to address the issue. The company recently commissioned a survey of around 2,000 UK workers which found that 47 percent of those surveyed said they would be bothered if their company was using software it hadn't paid for.
"People are concerned about working in an environment where illegal or counterfeit software is used," said Siobhan Carroll, the BSA's regional manager for Northern Europe, in a statement.
"In order to tackle software piracy head on and reduce the UK's 29 percent piracy rate, we are doubling the reward, as we think businesses will become more aware of the dangers of non-compliance," Carroll added.
Companies using illegal software run the greatest risk of being reported by current or former members of IT staff, according to the BSA.
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My experience (including ET/PIDA case) is that FAST, BSA and Trading Standards do not want to know about unlicensed software if brought to their attention as the cost of a 'raid/investigation' is too high, especially if the Perpetrator is seemingly a reputable professional firm (ET judgement confirms significant questionable conduct by employer). Comment such as 'exasperation, perfectionist, pernickety approach to licensing' - with no distinction being made between major operational suites licensing being challenged with minor utility stuff being ignored as 'real life', make it too easy for Employer to make out that the whistleblower was to be removed anyway for other reasons and the whistleblowing was not central to his dismissal (as required for PIDA to stand), thereby effectively negating the whistleblowing provisions and protection, with severe financial consequences to the whistleblower!. ET Review/Appeal may be pending. Whistleblowing for gain is not compatible with PIDA as good faith will be compromised.
6 May 06 22:37 ReplyThis involved a company of approximately 60 users on a thin client (MS Office,Terminal Servers/Citrix, Exchange, SQL plus specific application packages) system across 3 sites using some 17/20 servers, believe it or not!! Take Care.