Has Your Business Been Victim of a Technology Disaster? Learn How to Prevent Being Hammered Again.

When nature slams your business, a repeat disaster could easily follow—this one of man-made origin. This 5-part Briefing Series helps you minimize the inevitable post-disaster software piracy audit risks. From where we stand there isn’t a whole lot we can do to relieve the misery each of you has encountered, but The Institute wants to help where we can. So, here is our offer: We can help you prevent the next catastrophe with advice and guidance via the Internet.

It is now painfully obvious to all business technology consumers that computers, software, documentation, and electronic data make pretty lousy submarines. In the average disaster, the very core of your business is most likely gone or virtually unrecoverable. You are about to rebuild your technology infrastructure from scratch—be it two computers or twenty thousand computers—and, if you aren’t extremely careful, the con artists are going to set you up to get hammered yet again. You do not deserve that kind of abuse, so our primary goal is to provide advice to help you avoid future software piracy and non compliance punitive audit experiences courtesy of the software police and copyright cops. Our secondary goal—a very close second—is to enable you to save money when you re-invest in new technologies.

This article series was originally posted on our site for the benefit of victims of Katrina and other disasters. However, we quickly discovered a serious need for accurate, vendor-neutral advice on acquiring technologies after crippling events. Read on and consider what we have to offer individuals and companies that have been disaster victims.

Hello! I’m Alan Plastow, founder of The Institute for Technology Asset Management. After a disaster, when you buy your new computers, very frequently you’ll be looking for maximum product at minimum price. You’ll have little choice: Money is going to be tight. Although this is a perfectly normal reaction to the misery you’ve gone through, you need to be extremely careful of the operating systems, software, and other copyrighted products placed on those computers. From where I stand, I can predict with nearly 100% certainty that within a year of any significant disastrous event (18 months at the most) the software police and copyright cops will conduct mass software piracy, copyright violation, and license non compliance punitive audits in the areas of devastation.

Companies that are trying to recover from a disaster are going to fall prey to the “easy licenses” and “bargain costs” of counterfeit software and other products—including hardware. As well, these same companies, with their limited financial clout, are going to begin using shareware products to delay some computer-related expenses. The result? You will be setting yourselves up as easy targets for litigation by the nearly thirty members of the software police and/or copyright cops that are active in the U.S.—nearly 100 globally.

Another key issue you will need to become aware of is that the documentation from your software purchases is very closely scrutinized during a software non compliance, or piracy, audit. If, when you purchase your new copyright protected products, you do not receive the correct license; proofs of purchase; stamps, emblems, marks, or certificates of authenticity, or master media you will become a potential disaster target all over again.

Of all the businesses in the world, you are in a unique position. As demoralizing as your experience has been, you now have the opportunity to rebuild your business into something bolder and better than it may possibly have become prior to the disaster. Please permit me, at no cost, to guide you with advice in avoiding the software piracy audits that can easily follow your efforts to rebuild.

Monitor the Taminstitute.org blog site to access these full Disaster Recovery Knowledge Briefings. It’s free and you, your employees, and your company will benefit through short- and ling-term cost and risk reductions in technology asset management. This is the place for Disaster Survivors where I will answer your questions and provide no cost advice. Don’t suffer through the pain of recovering your business technologies only to be blind-sided and hammered all over again for incorrectly licensed copyrighted products after you are back in operation. We can provide the advice that you need.

With great respect for what you are enduring,

Alan L. Plastow

Founder

Killing the Risks of Click Licenses

No matter what you may wish to say about software publishers (and their legions of lawyers), they are definitely not stupid. Click-wrap licenses are an excellent case in point. Essentially this scam (sorry… I couldn’t think of a more applicable word) entraps your enterprise in a product license agreement you have never seen. And…conveniently enough, the same software industry lawyers have made sure to prove in court that these nearly invisible agreements are 100% legally binding.

In most cases, a click-wrap license appears via the Internet where ANYONE using your enterprise systems can lock you into an unexpected license (or other) agreement by clicking on a check box, NOT clicking on a check box, or even simply by accessing a given URL. They also very frequently appear when technicians “update” a working application or even when applying patches to existing defective products. We’ve all done this: stepping through a seemingly endless install process by clicking through the dozens of default settings.

Ever done a PDF application upgrade and ended up with an entirely new anti-virus? Then you know what a pain in the neck click-wrap is.

You will also discover that a majority of click-wrap licenses are (intentionally) designed to make it difficult – even nearly impossible – to read or print. Frequently, that tiny little two-inch square box on your screen hides a 15 page single-spaced license agreement. If the only way to document all this licensing content is to scroll through the text box and print it out 3 lines at a time using Print Screen, you should recognize that you have a high risk license on your hands.

In another very costly insult added to the click-wrap experience, over two-thirds of major click-wrap licenses intentionally supersede your carefully negotiated previous licenses with a seriously onerous new agreement.

A final, very popular, version of the click-wrap agreement is that the license clause may also permit the software publisher to “…modify the terms of this agreement at any time…”

NO! Do NOT allow ANY software industry player to include this clause in ANY license. If you do, you will pay a heavy price – literally.

For the large organization, unauthorized click-wrap licenses can represent tens of millions of dollars in invisible, unexpected, and unbudgeted license, support, and/or maintenance fees, not to mention the long term risks represented by the undocumented nature of this type of agreement. For the small enterprise, this perfectly legal game could become a crippling drain on the meager bottom line.

 

Resolution? From this point forward ensure that ALL software-related agreements contain a very clear statement that… “This license may not be superseded by any future agreement without direct written approval by both parties…” Get your lawyer to write this so it follows all the rules. And don’t forget to eliminate that “…modification…” clause mentioned above.

In terms of existing licenses, you are probably not going to be “allowed” to modify the agreement to add this clause. Here’s what you need to do: Make it very clear to any software industry player who wants to play this game that you will NOT participate, and do it in writing. Ensure that, every time you interact with this product supplier, you make it clear that you are willing to remove their products from your systems and replace them with a product developed by a software publisher that is honest and above-board in their licensing frameworks. If the given product developer wants to continue the game, displace their products.

Is your organization part of the FITARA or MEGABYTE Act initiatives in the U.S. Government? We've seen the end results of click-wrap style licensing in multiple government settings and a little proactive license work such as this can drastically reduce the IT/software spend. This content applies to you as well.

Is there more depth to this topic? Absolutely! However, I’m writing a brief (?) blog entry, not teaching a Software Asset Management (SAM) or Technology Asset Management (ITAM) course in this venue. If you want the courses, check out the Institute web site. Our professional development programs cover significantly more competencies than anything else available on the planet.