Based on our statistics and probabilties, you likely have parents, your partents likely have two computers and in then there are probably anywhere between 5 and 10 pirated software titles.

As you can see, you can make a nice bundle if you sqeal on your parents.

If interested, please call our hot line.

BSA

No matter what, the snitch will become uneployable in the neighborhood as word spreads around that it was he who snitched on his employer. That is unless the there is a BSA Snitch a protection program, similar to the FBI one and the snitch enters it.

I wonder, is the big house Gates built is a home for snitches under the BSA Snitch a protection program?

Just kidding.

First of all, any figure that’s tossed about is a maximum ‘up to’ figure. Don’t count on that $36,000 or $200,000 going in the bank just yet. If you are lucky you will get perhaps a fraction of that, depending upon how much money the BSA can shakedown their ‘mark’ (your former employer) for.

If you work at a Fortune 500 or even 1000 company, forget it. They all have in-house corporate legal counsel that will basically tell the BSA to go pound sand and file a lawsuit if they think they have a case. Dealing with and disposing of questionable lawsuits at little expense (other than the lawyer’s salary which is paid out anyhow) allows the corporate attorney to highlight their achievements during their performance review and justify a large raise. Oh, and if the BSA does file suit, guess what the first piece of discovery that is asked for is? Right, “Who snitched?”

The BSA typically picks on small to medium sized companies who AREN’T in what is considered a technically savvy business domain. Don’t look for them to be going after web-design houses, small software companies, etc (except in truly egregious cases). They’ll go after the plastics distributor, the small retail chain, the car dealer, etc, who doesn’t have the experienced staff to do a overnight ‘clean-up’ on short notice.

Upon getting the complaint and ’substantiating’ it, they will then proceed to harass, browbeat, badger, and harrangue the target company into letting the BSA come in and do a complimentary ‘compliance audit’. Refusals are met with language of increasing temperature and threats of lawsuit and the ultimate threat of being ‘raided’ by the US Marshalls with the BSA in tow. The truth is that the US Marshalls are unlikely to be interested in 5 improperly licensed installations of WinXP and Office 2003. If they are going to raid something they want to make sure it at least gets on the local news, so we’re in the neighborhood of 300 XP/Offices OR none of anything is licensed AND the owners/management are selling unlicensed products (true piracy) off the loading dock as well. Then they can have their obligatory pix of the alleged perps in handcuffs being stuffed into the back seats of late model Crown Vics and driven away to await their subsequent perp-walk of shame in court.

Other than that, the BSA relies pretty much on bluster and blather. The best advice to a company is to tell them to contact the company’s attorney and just keep telling them ‘no’. In the end, the only resort they have is filing a lawsuit and guess whose name will come up in discovery again?

Oh, and even if it doesn’t, it’s highly likely that your ex-employer knows EXACTLY who the snitch is, many times without even having to think for more than one second. If you still happen to be employed there, you won’t be for long.

It’s no accident that 2/3 of the BSA is ‘BS.’

I have found that there is pirated software on the internet.

Please send me my check for $200,000.

Thank you.

Bobby, age 8