MCAD Tech News #136
5 Jan, 2005Hot on the Trail of the Software Pirate
Autodesk couples education with a relentless fight against unauthorized product use
All it takes is one disgruntled employee making an
anonymous report, and a company could be looking at
tens of thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees,
not to mention embarrassment and a damaged
reputation.
The issue is software piracy. Copying software, in
nearly all cases, is illegal. Yet in 2003 alone, U.S.
software developers lost about 22% of their
potential market to theft, leading to revenue losses
of $6.5 billion, according to BSA (Business Software
Alliance). Worldwide, the loss that year amounted to
more than $29 billion. For companies like Autodesk,
which estimates that five of every six copies of
AutoCAD in use today are unauthorized, the hit is
huge.
Last month at Autodesk University, we spoke with Autodesk about its
Piracy Prevention Program, which educates consumers about
software law, helps companies better manage their
software use, and relentlessly pursues software
thieves -- be they individuals or companies --
often levying fines
and fees that can amount to $50,000 to $100,000, or
more.
Sandy Boulton, director of piracy prevention at
Autodesk, says, "Eighty percent of piracy reports
against a company come from current or former
disgruntled employees." Autodesk accepts anonymous
piracy reports over its Web site, via e-mail, and by
phone. At any given time, Autodesk has around
250 companies under investigation for software theft,
and it settles an average of 350-400 cases each year.
Know the Law
A large part of the piracy problem, Boulton says, is
lack of knowledge about software copyright law. U.S.
law specifies that software is copyrighted material
and states, "It is illegal to make or distribute
copies of copyrighted material without authorization"
of the copyright owner. (The only exception for
software is a user's right to create one backup copy
for archiving.) In other words, companies and
users must have a valid license for every copy of a
software application in use; if they don't, they are
breaking the law. According to Autodesk, even a user
ordered by company management to install unauthorized
software is committing a crime.
The law allows software developers to recover damages
for copyright infringement (as much as
$150,000 per product if the crime was willful),
destruction of the illegal copies, and attorney's
fees. Boulton says Autodesk typically seeks twice the
retail price of the stolen software plus attorney's
fees, or it can charge the company a fee to delete
the stolen software from its systems.
Most software users don't know the law, or they
believe it's OK to break it under certain
circumstances. BSA — a global organization that
represents software developers before governments and
in the international marketplace — commissioned a
survey in 2004 in which Ispos Public Affairs
questioned 300 architects and 300 engineers about
software piracy.
Though 51% of the architects and 80%
of the engineers said they know it's wrong to distribute
unlicensed software to coworkers, 57% of
architects and 78% of engineers also
responded that software cost is a justifiable reason
to use unlicensed products. Nearly half of the
architects and 13% of the engineers said at least some
unlicensed software is in use in their organizations.
Boulton and her staff also queried Autodesk
users about their knowledge of copyright law. At Autodesk University,
only 8% of respondents answered all five questions
correctly, and in an online contest that ran during AU, less than
half of respondents to the survey were completely correct. "This
indicates to me that we still have some educational
work to do around the issue of software compliance,"
Boulton comments.
Auction Sites and Pirated Software
Software sold on Internet auctions sites is a
particular problem. BSA estimates that 90% of
software sold on such sites is pirated. In the case
of Autodesk products, Boulton said, any version sold
via auction is illegal, because every Autodesk
software product sold legally — by either Autodesk
itself or an authorized reseller — is licensed for
use on a single workstation, and transferring the
license is not allowed. (Some Autodesk products can
be purchased under a network license agreement that
allows companies to move a purchased copy from one
workstation to another, but those products also are
not authorized for resale of any kind.)
Boulton believes that most other major CAD software vendors have similar licensing policies.
Piracy Prevention Program
In
addition to communicating the risks and damaging
effects of software piracy, Autodesk also provides
resources to help companies remain compliant,
including a Software Asset Management Toolkit,
Autodesk Subscription Service to keep licenses up to
date, payment plans
through some of its resellers, and Autodesk Product Activation
— also known as a software lock.
The software lock exists on all copies of AutoCAD
2005, tying each licensed copy to one machine, so it
can't be transferred without Autodesk authorization.
Boulton reports that this feature — a technology
common in Europe and Asia but resisted in the United States in the past — has been generally
accepted this time around. "We haven't received too
many complaints from users," Boulton says.
Unrelenting Pursuit
Since it launched the Piracy Prevention Program in
1989, Autodesk has recovered more than $63 million in
North America through settlements with companies
using unauthorized software. In October 2004 alone,
the company announced that BSA had settled for a
total of $536,000 with seven U.S. companies found to
be using unlicensed Autodesk and other software.
Autodesk posts examples of recent actions on its Web
site — including company names and details of their
illegal activity.
In other antipiracy activity, the company is
currently pursuing criminal charges against an
individual in Petaluma, California. "The man was
arraigned in mid-December on five felony counts of
selling pirated software," Boulton explains. "Four of the counts
involve the sale of Autodesk software and the fifth
count involves the sale of Adobe software." A preliminary hearing is set for January 20.
The potential losses are so substantial for the
software industry that law enforcement agencies go to
great lengths to nab the most grievous copyright
infringers. Boulton recounts one case in which a man
in the Ukraine was selling pirated software over the
Internet. Ukrainian law doesn't prohibit the
activity, so although the FBI knew the man's
location, it was helpless to stop him. Agents waited
until the man went on vacation to Thailand, followed
him, and arrested him there.
Piracy Prevention: What You Can Do
To obtain Autodesk's Software Asset Management
Toolkit or other information regarding software
piracy, or to report cases of unauthorized use of
Autodesk software, go to the Autodesk Piracy Prevention Program Web site or
call 1.800.662.6743.
Links
Autodesk Piracy Prevention Program: http://www.autodesk.com/piracy
Business Software Alliance: http://www.bsa.org
U.S. Copyright Office: http://www.copyright.gov