Software trade organizations are creating incentives to encourage discontented, recently fired or ethically charged employees to report company executives for illegal software use. Rewards for employees are reported to be as high as $200,000.
Laurie Atkinson of the Business Software Alliance states that many people are responding, either because they are unhappy at work or because they simply think reporting such activities is the right thing to do. The Alliance has paid for radio ads to promote this campaign and appeal to as many workers as possible.
The software industry is losing millions of dollars annually because of the epidemic of illegally copied software. Computer business giants from Microsoft to Adobe have called upon the help of organizations like the BSA and the Software and Information Industry Association to help spotlight companies that are using pirated packages.
Computer business trade associations are not going after small companies. But companies that have more than 500 work stations loaded with more than one illegal and expensive software programs are definitely targets.
In the past year, both the SIIA and the BSA – two of the country’s top copyright protection groups -- have started offering hard cash to reporting employees. Both are also offering online filing forms for employees to further ease the process. The SIIA alone gets approximately 200 reports per month and investigates about 50 of those. The penalty for each company determined to have pirated programs is three times the market rate for each illegal program it has.
The BSA and the SIIA offer very similar rewards to employees that report their companies. If a settlement or judgment ranges from $10,000 to $50,000, the tipster receives $500; from $50,000 to $100,000, the reward is $5,000, and so on, as long as it is under $200,000.The SIIA paid employees about $75,000 in reward money last year.
Posted By: Joshua Feinberg
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