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Subject:RE: On using pirated software From:"Tom Johnson" <johnsont -at- starcutter -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:52:11 -0400
The company I work for makes it a priority to maintain legitimate licenses
for products. We recently received a letter from an attorney in Chicago
(working for Microsoft) demanding that we list every piece of MS software
that we have installed on every computer.
Then, we had to come up with a legitimate pathway for every license we had.
That meant we had to be able to prove we bought an upgrade legally. For some
time, you could send in the first page from a Word manual and that would
qualify for the upgrade price. How do we prove to Microsoft that we sent
them a page out of a manual for Word 6.0 seven years ago?
There have been so many ways to upgrade and so many releases of Office, not
to mention how many computers we've upgraded, it makes tracking everything
nearly impossible. If Microsoft can't tell us what software we've
registered, why does the burden of proof have to fall on us?
How does this tie into technical writing? I guess I wish Microsoft would
tell people up front what records we should retain in order to make sure the
software cops don't come breathing down our necks years later. It also means
as employees and contractors that we should keep fastidious records of how
the software we use migrates from computer to computer and user to user. It
really irks me that MS is probably going to get our company to fork over a
bunch of bucks, even though we've made a reasonable effort to stay legal.
The way it looks to us is that MS is targeting larger companies that use
lots of software and probably can't validate every copy. The averages are
probably on their side and the attorney gets his share I'm sure.
I'm not trying to bash Microsoft, but I sure think they are not giving
themselves a very good reputation with the way they are handling these
audits.
Tom Johnson
Technical Writer
Elk Rapids Engineering/Star Cutter Company
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