As the annual income tax deadline falls upon us, another ominous cutoff date is also approaching.
April 30 marks the end of a month-long “truce” declared by the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft (CAAST) and its member companies.
During April, most companies and individuals in Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba have the chance to come clean without fear of prosecution for past software piracy. Just call 1-866-NOPIRACY and be ready to confess and write some cheques. After the truce ends, pirates may face hefty penalties as software companies vow to get serious about chasing illegal business software, which they claim costs $135 million a year in lost sales in Alberta, B.C. and Manitoba.
In fact, CAAST makes the startling claim that 41 per cent of all business software used in Canada in 1999 was pirated, compared to 25 per cent in the U.S.
Are we inherently sneakier than our American cousins, or are there other reasons?
“One big difference is that in the U.S., they have had a concept of statutory damages for decades,” says CAAST president Allan Steel.
This allows vendors to claim damages without having to prove actual losses relating to the piracy.
“For a company like Microsoft, if somebody steals a $200 operating system, are you going to go to all this work and take them to court? Probably not.”
Steel says that as of about a year ago, the concept of statutory damages has been recognized in Canada in software piracy cases.
“This allows for fines of up to $20,000 per work in print, so what that means is that if somebody is caught with five packages of illegal software, it’s $100,000.”
Criminal charges can also be laid by the Crown attorney under the Canadian Copyright Act with penalties up to five years in jail and a fine of $1 million, he says.
OK, so you’re not 15 years old, you don’t burn hot CDs or trade illegal software on the Internet. This is all pretty irrelevant to you, right?
Well, not exactly. Steel is also the general manager of Autodesk Canada, a company that sells high-end engineering software including AutoCAD and 3DStudio MAX.
AutoCAD alone retails for $5,107, so the company was not amused to see a copy of it being sold for much less on the Internet. It traced the serial number, and it was licensed to an energy company in Calgary. Here’s where the story gets really sad . . . .
A diligent employee of the company had taken a copy of the software home to put in more work on evenings and weekends. This was actually permitted under the licence agreement, as long as both weren’t used at once. But his son decided it was such a cool program, he’d burn a copy and take it into his school.
Then an entrepreneurial friend realized the potential for making a few bucks, and offered the program for sale online. In the end, the son’s action got his father fired, because the company had a “software asset management” policy in place and he had violated it.
This may strike you as draconian, but companies that don’t have and enforce such a policy run the risk of being sued by software vendors. They have the right to hold the company, its officers and directors responsible for software piracy, and no company wants to hold its next board meeting in adjoining jail cells. So, what’s a person or a company to do?
Steel recommends that you buy your hardware and software from a reputable dealer, and keep all the CDs and paperwork. “We get lots of calls from people who have bought a $2,500 computer with $2,500 worth of software installed on it, and that’s a good tip-off that something’s wrong. Watch out for a store that’s just opened up and seems to have piles of boxes around.”
Usually people who bought computers with illegally preloaded software learn about it when they try to upgrade and are told their serial number is no good.
“Even if the person was innocent, it’s still their problem because they have the responsibility to verify that they had the right to use the software,” says Steel.
Many companies have Web sites or toll-free numbers that allow you to check the legality of your software. Microsoft, for example, offers 1-800-RULEGIT, but it’s only staffed during business hours so please don’t have a crisis of conscience over the weekend.
CAAST itself offers a utility called GRASP for free (and legal) downloading from its Web site. It will help you inventory your software and I don’t think it rats on you if you are being bad. You’ll want to be on a fast Internet connection when you download it because it’s 14.8 megabytes of fun.
I do have a beef with the software vendors, because they really should get together and make it dead easy for us to confirm that all the software we acquire is legitimate.
Sometimes you have to look for a hologram, sometimes you get a certificate of authenticity, or a developer’s licence, or you register the thing by phone or online.
If they really wanted us to be honest, they would make it easy by setting up a universal registry site, using digital signatures, that would validate all the software commonly used in business. It’s technically possible.
Steel says this is not happening because every company likes to market differently, and you can’t very well tell Microsoft and Autodesk to do things the same way. I find that argument a little thin because they are able to get together just fine when they want to go sue somebody.
Maybe someday they’ll decide to put the same co-operative spirit into making it easier for us to be honest. This truce is one small step in that direction, and they say they’re getting a lot of calls. But remember, when the clock strikes 12 on the night of April 30, hostilities resume on the software piracy front.
Web Watch:
www.caast.org www.bsa.org (CAAST’s U.S. counterpart)
www.microsoft.com/canada/piracy/
