Avoiding Software Piracy - BSA Announces Software Asset & Licence Management Tools

On 28 January 2004 the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reported the most frequent copyright infringers in the previous year were from the IT industry - representing 24% of all software copyright infringement piracy settlements that year. Other major contributors to the total included the construction/engineering & architecture/design sectors together totaling 27% of all settlements. Mr Sibhan Carroll was reported as saying, 'We would like to see the IT sector as a guardian for our mission, but clearly this isn't the case'. Recent report suggest that such infringements have not significantly changed.

Report

The report states that software piracy accounted for an estimated $13.8bn in 2002. The report emphasises the importance of an email and Internet policy for the workplace which restricts Internet and email usage to commercial purposes.For employers, such a device may offer some protection against infringement claims. It is always an option to implement group policies and asset management processes as part of a programme to enforce a company's Internet & email policies.

Software Licence Management Initiative

As an incentive for businesses to take licensing more seriously in all sectors, the BSA has released software asset management on the Internet at www.justasksam.co.uk, which offers guidance on centralising software procurement and setting policies and procedures.

Inherent Risks

There are solid non-financial reasons to ensure that software installed on business systems are legitimate copies. To explain, state of the art packaged software - Photoshop CS2 for instance - comes with built-in digital rights management and security features to prevent simple disk to disk copying. For the security measures to be circumvented in this type of software package, the software must be materially altered. Tampering with such security measures would also in all likelihood amount to an infringement of copyright. In order to alter the software to such an extent to crack the protection on it, read/write access must be granted to the program altering the master copy. There is no reason why the software cracking Photoshop in our example cannot impregnate the computer with viruses, trojan horses or any other flavour of malicious code that has become so prevalent on the open market of the Internet.

Considering the sophisticated and calculated capabilities of malicious code, it is not beyond the realm of probability that the crack alters the system registry and creates a backdoor for entry by a third party, making confidential information, like marketing plans, sales figures and profit projections susceptible to prying eyes. This type of crack instantly compromises any other security features installed on the network including firewalls and perhaps anti-virus measures.

What to Do to avoid Infringement

It makes sense to ensure that software audits are regularly carried out to avoid the prospect of fines and the corporate humiliation that may arise from public exposure of the consequences of improper license management and associated infringement claims.

We set out a guide to the types of software piracy here and open source licensing here.