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

Non-Commercial Use Clause - A Software Licensing Land Mine

At The Institute for Technology Asset Management, we’ve encountered the “Non-Commercial Use” clause in multiple instances of enterprises being audited for non-compliance. The bottom line behind this clause is its very “obtuse-ness” (if you will).

Much like the “right to audit” clause & its reliance on various nebulous (ever-shifting?) definitions of both “audit” & “compliance”, the Non-Commercial Use clause permits the copyright holder to write the rules as they encounter the instance – even up to selecting the most useful copyright law to cite in your legal notification - thus maximizing the potential for non-compliance settlement fines & penalties.

Further (& again, we believe intentionally), VERY few IT personnel have any clue how non-commercial applies to ownership of the system versus how the product is actually being utilized much less which systems in the enterprise contain these products. As software asset managers - SAMs - it's up to us to help educate the enterprise about this hazardous clause - one that is present in a wide range of licenses.

Result of Misinterpreting This Clause: You become an easy - & conveniently defenseless - audit target!

Bottom Line: Closely review the license terms. If the license has a Non-Commercial Use clause, recognize that the clause essentially applies to both where you put the product AND how you use that product. Essentially, do not place the product on a corporate system & do not use that product to produce any subsequent product or service.

Want a revealing experience relating to this type of clause (from the perspective of real live IT personnel)?  Read the following thread - it's long...but invest the time in clearly understanding this classic disconnect between licensees & licensors.  The organization initiating the thread used an evaluation licensed product – with a non-commercial use license caveat - in a production environment.  The odds are really high that your own IT personnel have done this, or are doing this… The thread is HERE.

Software License & Copyright Compliance Assurance Quiz – It’s FREE!

Do you have questions about the ins & outs of software license compliance audits? Are you concerned that you may not be prepared to counter a software license audit, or a copyright violation audit? The average business is currently hunted by as many as 100 anti-piracy auditing groups. Very few enterprises trust these enforcement groups to provide answers without pursuing their own hidden agenda, so where can you go to find a trusted resource?

Take a few minutes & step through the following confidential quiz from The Institute for Technology Asset Management. Your ability to answer – or not answer – these simple questions will give you an excellent baseline regarding your chances of minimizing exposure to crippling software license non compliance & copyright violation audits.

The “Software License Compliance & Copyright Compliance Baseline Quiz” is available HERE. 

As you step through the quiz, keep track of the number of issues for which your only justifiable answer is "no." A valid justifiable answer is one you can prove "...to the satisfaction of the copyright holder..." so anything you cannot prove must produce a "no" answer to the quiz issue. Each of these issues will represent a specific weakness in your preparedness for stonewalling, or at least minimizing, the impacts of a punitive enforcement audit.