Sony BMG Sued For Using Pirated Software 266
An anonymous reader sends us to ZeroPaid, which seems to be the only site in English to have picked up a story out of France involving Sony and piracy. Except this time the shoe is on the other foot. The small software company PointDev learned that Sony BMG was using a pirated license for one of its system administration tools. PointDev got bailiffs to raid a Sony property and they found pirated software on four servers. The source article (link is to a Google translation of French original) quotes PointDev's spokesman claiming that the BSA believes 47% of software used in corporations to be illegal — whether he is referring to Sony in particular is not clear in the translation.
Inside Sony (Score:4, Informative)
47% is global, not for Sony (Score:5, Informative)
I'm french so I can provide a more accurate translation:
According to the Business Software Alliance, an organization representing the major software companies, 47% of the software used by businesses in France is used illegally.
So 47% is the global number for french businesses, not limited to Sony.
Bad summary (Score:3, Informative)
The 47% figure (Score:3, Informative)
I still wonder... (Score:5, Informative)
It's good to see Sony pay though. I hope this gets mainstream news coverage - I really can't stand those Hippocr... ah, excuse me, my choleric side is breaking through again...
Sue the bastards!
Re:47% is global, not for Sony (Score:3, Informative)
If you steal software, don't call the support (Score:3, Informative)
"PointDev noticed that Sony was unlawfully using "Ideal Migration" only after receiving support inquiries from one of Sony's employees."
Re:Why it does not happen more often? (Score:3, Informative)
Nope. I read the original french article, not the translation, and the employee called tech support for help, not knowing that the license key was pirated. PointDev didn't have them in their customer database, tracked down the key, then got a bailiff to seize the servers in question.
Re:Awesome... (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know what the "translation" says, but the original french article makes the point that the keys were generated at the time of the merger of the 2 companies, when they would need to migrate data from one server to another. It wasn't "casual". that's why the company is saying they're not interested in "working out a settlement" - they want a judgment, to serve as a warning.
Re:Inside Sony (Score:5, Informative)
I can count on one finger the organizations I've worked for where shareware tools like WinZip were actually properly licensed. At one shop I worked at, I actually had the CFO (who also functioned as the CIO/CTO) say, in these exact words, "oh, nobody actually enforces that WinZip license.. you think the BSA is gonna come in here and bust our nuts over 100 unlicensed copies of WinZip? Get real!".
Three months after I left this company, the BSA came in, did a "software audit", and indeed busted their nuts over 100 unlicensed copies of WinZip (along with other licensing violations).
Re:Not surprising (Score:3, Informative)
The weird part was that it was http://www.laprovence.com/articles/2008/03/19/347901-UNKNOWN-Une-societe-vauclusienne-attaque-le-geant-Sony.php [laprovence.com] rather obvious it was cracked - there was a keygen used (search the net for "TAM/CORE" for more info) and most of the time, people who install cracked software leave the keygen somewhere on the machine "just in case".
This is one of the risks that you run into when your business is dependent on closed-source, proprietary software - more specifically, in this case, when you run Windows.
Re:Inside Sony (Score:4, Informative)
Well if they don't know about it, how do you expect them to answer?
Or do you just expect them to check now, and give you an answer later?
As for reflecting on them... Employee behaviour at one sibling company doesn't reflect on the other sibling company, it reflect on the parent, for not disciplining it's "child" companies. This is not just a division, they are seperate companies, with only some owners in common.
47% of *French* companies (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Inside Sony (Score:5, Informative)
Legally, they're required to know about everything, even the stuff they don't know about. If they don't know about someone installing an illicit copy of MS Office on their work laptop, and that person is caught, they're certainly likely to fire the employee, but that doesn't stop them from being liable. Ask all the companies that the BSA's raided over the years.
Re:Let me be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Inside Sony (Score:3, Informative)
Software licensing is like that statement "give me 6 lines from an honest man...", The one-sided structure of most EULA's makes them nearly impossible to be 100% legal in the real world.
Let's say you have a backup server cluster/SAN.. technically that software may be considered "pirated" because it's on the PC running it, and 2 backup servers that "could" run it, as well as any PC connected to the network drive. They would count your licensed backup as the one to tape... if they don't get you for "distributing" those tapes to your various backup locations. Take the case of Earnie Ball where they moved PCs from Engineers to Secretaries without properly removing ALL the software (fonts and custom drivers count too!) first (the only safe way is wipe and re-install, uninstallers don't work properly for LEGAL purposes!! ha, ha). When you replace a user's PC for a new one you take away the old one while you build the new one, right.. and make them wait a day so the licenses are "legal". you get the idea...