Employees are scrambling to rat out employers using pirated software, after the Business Software Alliance (BSA) openly offered a R100 000 reward as part of an anti-piracy marketing campaign.
BSA chairman Alastair de Wet says the hotline and online report figures spiked by 200% in the first month since the campaign started. Calls came in at twice to three times the volume after the first radio advert, he adds.
De Wet explains the BSA has always offered a reward to individuals who expose companies that are not using licensed software; however, the reward has been increased from R50 000 to R100 000. “We wanted the local figure to be more in-line with international figures. For instance, the UK reward is £20 000,” he adds.
“We have not used the reward as a focus in our campaigns before, because it has sometimes been seen as a negative way to approach it. I really don't think it is; other criminal reports are rewarded, and piracy is a crime. For this campaign, we decided to go ahead and do it anyway.”
He explains that all BSA members contribute to the rewards. “They will give what they can when they can.”
Locally, the BSA has 46 members, including some of the larger international software vendors, such as Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, SAP and CA.
100% is impossible
Employees hoping to cash in on the scheme are urged to remember the reward is dependant on how much the BSA recovers from each case. “We are not really looking at your uncle who has a pirated operating system. We are looking at businesses that are not interested in implementing legal software.”
The alliance says it has a responsibility to those companies that take the time to implement good licensing agreements, and pay a fortune to get it right. “We understand that companies spend money on good licence implementations, and we have a moral duty to protect them.”
De Wet says the BSA understands that no company can get it 100% right, 100% of the time. “However, if they are trying to get it done, who can fault them? Those companies which just don't care must remember that piracy is a crime.”
While employees are out spending the reward money, business owners could face up to three years' imprisonment and a hefty fine. This sentence is governed by two laws: the Counterfeit Goods Act and the Copyright Act, which both carry the same maximum sentence.
However, this is only for the first offense. Owners who are found guilt in the courts for a second time, face a R10 000 fine and a five-year jail term.
Channel trouble
The BSA says piracy has a local economic knock-on effect. According to De Wet, while most of the software vendors are internationally-based giants, the local channel is also affected.
“Workgroup and Comztek are both completely local companies with local staff. These companies are impacted, when they are not selling the software that locals are pirating.” He says Microsoft estimates that for every $1 it spends on production in the US, it generates $9 in the local economies to which it distributes.
A report published by a local security businessDexSecuritySolutions shows local piracy constitutes an annual figure of R1.9 billion in theft. The same report shows the majority of small businesses are using illegal software.
According to De Wet, depending on the number of software instances pirated, the higher the fine could be. “The level of the fine could be so high that companies could be shut down. It's not what we want to do, but we have a moral obligation to the local economy.”
An IDC report released last year shows the South African economy is boosted by ICT spend, with a contribution of around 3.4% of the local GDP. It says a mere reduction in piracy of 10% over four years could generate R6 billion in additional revenue in the South African ICT industry and around 1 210 extra IT jobs.
The IDC report also shows that with import taxes, government would gain an added R490 million.
Hope yet
The BSA campaign aims to highlight the effects of piracy and point out to employers how the alliance gets tipped off. “Most of the piracy tips we get on our hotline are from disgruntled ex-employees or employees,” says De Wet.
However, he says there is hope for businesses concerned they may be running illegal software. The second half of the BSA's marketing campaign will explain that businesses will have the opportunity to accurately license their software.
“We will be setting up a group of asset management partners to guide companies through the legalisation processes and help them to ensure they are as compliant as possible.”
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