Stopping Software Piracy in the Enterpise

[n2ize]

You are at work. Your boss calls you into his office. he hands you a CD cobntaining a popular proprietary software program and asks you to install it on all the computers in the accounting department. You ask how many machines the program is licensed to run on and you find that your boss only purchased one single license. In other words the program he is asking you ro install and run on hundreds of processors is licensed only for one single processor. You..

1) Go ahead and do the installation and say nothing ?
2) Voice your displeasure and install it anyway and say nothing ?
3) Do as instructed but blow the whistle and report the act of piracy to the BSA ?

If you answered #3 you are correct. Just because your boss asks you to steal doesn;t make it right. By reporting it you are serving to protect intellectual property AND you are protecting your professional image.

[WØTKX]

Some software publishers pay a reward.

No reason to do that anymore... there's plenty of free/share software available for most tasks.

[n2ize]

Some software publishers pay a reward.

No reason to do that anymore... there's plenty of free/share software available for most tasks.

True. But there are still plenty of businesses who steal. Software privacy in the enterprise is still a critical issue.

[n6hcm]

this is such a nightmare to clean up ... my last startup gig had this issue (not because they were especially interested in avoiding the expense, but because they were a startup and weren't going to be hindered by silly things like license purchases ... ) and i was the one who cleaned it up.

here's the messed up part--everyone thinks they're legitimately exempt from these things. i've seen this in the non-profit sector, in the for-profit world, content providers, software publishers, hardware manufacturers. "isn't there a site license agreement?" "yes, and it costs money to have that ... "

[WØTKX]

AutoDesk. Pay them.