By Martin Brampton, 7 May 2008 16:52
COMMENT
So, corporate misuse of software licences seems to be down to incompetence, which is not yet generally counted as a crime. In fact, this incompetence is often compounded by vendors whose record keeping is rather worse than that of their customers.
Moreover, little trouble seems to be taken to ensure that licences can be purchased to match the needs of customers.
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Why is it so difficult, for example, to negotiate a site licence based on disclosure of staff numbers and agreement on percentage use - with a guarantee that there will then be no audit or other enforcement action prior to the next negotiation?
Why are vendors so unhelpful over licensing for light enquiry use of software, as opposed to regular full use?
When it comes to individuals, the situation is far less simple than Fast would have us believe. Theft was originally understood to be the unlawful removal of someone else's property. It is pretty clear why this is damaging to the victim.
But it has yet to be explained how the owner of a digital entity is damaged if someone takes a copy of it that they would not have wanted if they had to pay for it. Indeed there is often seen to be an advantage to the "victim" in achieving market share, especially in the polarised markets of IT where leadership is all.
The revenue that is supposedly lost is pure illusion, since in many cases the users of copies either could not or would not afford the official price.
Despite all this confusion, there are calls for the providers of internet access to police transfers of software. This is an extraordinary suggestion, tantamount to demanding that bus companies guarantee that their passengers never carry stolen goods.
When representatives of organisations such as Fast regularly speak about suspicions rather than facts, what do we think the hapless ISP should be doing? How exactly would they detect unlawful software transfers?
Given the huge effort that is going into removing spam from the welter of email, and its decidedly partial success, there will always be considerable doubts. And they would surely include false positives with possibly serious consequences for innocent internet users.
It does seem that buyers of software have legitimate grievances that go unheard in all the shouting about piracy.
Before castigating their customers or the general public, it would be far more constructive for software vendors to consider whether their licences are fair to users. And to check that enforcement mechanisms are not unreasonably cumbersome.
Most of all, before attempting to take the moral high ground, vendors could look to their own practices.
Comments
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1. Austin Holdsworth
I think Microsoft has to rethink its Windows licensing strategy.
It's fair to say that most consumers, including SMB and home users, are knowingly using hooky versions because the combined price tag of Windows and Office is too high. But this also includes students and self-learners everywhere. Granted, there are discounts to "official" students. Most student techies will learn their trade by dabbling with software at home.
Eventually, open source alternatives will become de facto for those people who want to increase their knowledge and skills.
Pricing out this next generation of IT decision makers is not great strategy for maintaining market share. I think it's possible that MS may need to move to a free-for-non-commercial use licence to keep this important user base for the future.
2. Karen Challinor
Before you have to go grubbing about under a desk to retrieve your licence key again may I suggest you invest in a backup utility to allow you to create an image backup of the system at a point when it is working and further to create backups of your data at regular intervals.
After all, according to Microsoft, XP is on the way out, and there may come a point when you cannot activate your software after a reinstallation
But back to the article, you say:
"The revenue that is supposedly lost is pure illusion, since in many cases the users of copies either could not or would not afford the official price".
I can't afford a Ferrari and there's no way I could purchase one at the official price. Your argument seems to say that should I go out and "obtain" one by a means that doesn't deprive an existing owner of their vehicle, then I should not be regarded as having comitted a crime as all I am doing is getting more Ferraris on the road and thereby pumping up the image of the company
Can't see the police wearing that one somehow.
3. anonymous
Karen,
If you find a way of copying an existing Ferrari (i.e. cloning), WITHOUT taking someone else's away from them, then theft hasn't been committed. The Police would be powerless to intervene. Full stop.
Ferrari, and other makers, might form FACC (Federation Against Car Cloning), and make a lot of noise, but ask yourself what they, and legitimate car owners, have actually lost.
The answer is nothing.
The same applies to software, IF and only if, Martin is right about people only copying software they can't afford/don't really want to buy. That surely doesn't apply to o/s and office-type applications, which no one would copy 'just in case' they wanted to use it...
4. Robbie Richmond
There is no excuse for someone to use pirated copies of software, even if they 'cannot afford it'.
If someone can't afford a Windows licence, use Linux. Can't afford Office? Use SunOffice or OpenOffice or Microsoft Works. There are countless alternatives for less money - and perhaps less functionality - so this can't be a legitimate excuse.
Neither is the fact that the piracy happens through incompetence - if I drive a car incompetently, and end up speeding, how would that be taken as an excuse? Like it or lump it, software companies have a right to be paid for their intellectual property - that's the law.