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BSA posts Million Dollar Bounty on your Small Business
I’m not sure if many of you small business owners are aware of this but there is a watchdog group that wouldn’t mind poking around the computers of your business. They are looking for software violations within your company and are not shy about imposing some pretty stiff fines on those companies caught, even unknowingly. They are Business Software Alliance (BSA) and they are not your friends.
The BSA was founded in 1988 representing technology companies on many fronts such as the above mentioned software piracy issues. Not all software companies are involved but IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc. are companies represented by them. They have shown to be quite successful as well, winning nearly $13 million in software violation settlements with North American companies last year.
90% of that number was won from suits against small businesses that often overlook such issues they may never even have thought of or they cannot afford to hire a lawyer to fight the suit. Under the current copyright laws, they can collect up to $150,000 per infringed work if their lawsuit was successful and have at times only fined companies a merciful $30,000 if the incident was unintentional, which unfortunately in today’s economy can make or break a business.
Do you wanna know the kicker in this story? Most of the time it’s an ex-employee who is the whistleblower to the BSA. A disgruntled person in IT intentionally reports the company work or worked for is copying one program onto multiple PCs. They are also offering rewards to these types of employees of up to $1 million dollars to rat your company out. Most informants only collect amounts in $5,000 range which is still enough of a carrot to tempt someone in your company to report you.
Let’s face it, that isn’t too uncommon for a small business looking to save some money or doesn’t know any better. It even happens when a new computer is bought for the office and all the programs for the old computer are copied and moved to the new one. So now your office has two computers yet only one license. See how commonly overlooked this can be? There have even been some extreme cases where the BSA seeks court approval and raids companies searching for evidence that you somehow are a criminal.
Has anyone else heard or seen any other stories involving the BSA? I’d love to hear about them.
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