202303.22
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Be Wary of Audit Tools Promoted by Software Auditors

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Most companies with more than a handful of computers in their IT environments rely on the results of network-inventory tools to gather the deployment data needed for accurate software audits. Without the tools, a business would be required to assign valuable resources to manually looking at the titles installed on each machine. Therefore, it should…

202211.14
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Releases of Liability as Part of Licensing Deals – How Hard to Push?

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Software publishers know that the vast majority of their customers are, to varying degrees, out of compliance with the terms of license agreements governing their use of the publishers’ software products. Especially in larger enterprises, managing and maintaining a company’s license position is a daunting and maybe even impractical task, especially given the increasingly complex…

202211.14
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Software Audits: The Importance of Timely Completion of Post-Settlement Obligations

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Software audits initiated by software publishers or representative entities, such as the Business Software Alliance (“BSA”) and Software & Information Industry Association (“SIIA”), are often resolved by an out-of-court settlement. The carefully crafted settlement agreements release an audited company from liability, contingent on the following obligations: 1) The accuracy of the submitted audit results, 2) Payment of…

202210.31
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Effective Audit-Response Policies Can Be Vital in Responding to Software Audits

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Businesses often have close relationships with software vendors, and that closeness usually is in direct proportion to the extent and importance of those vendors’ software products in the businesses’ network environments. However, despite their best marketing efforts, software vendors’ interests always will remain aligned primarily with their own bottom line, and that often means that…

202210.31
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Can a Software Publisher Force You to Audit Your Customers?

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Many software-solution vendors utilize third-party infrastructure or application programs as frameworks for embedded solutions that they sell to their customers and install on their customers’ computers. Licenses for those third-party products typically can be acquired by a vendor and passed to its customers pursuant to the terms of an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) or Original…

202209.19
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Software-Audit Compliance Demands Often Include “Fuzzy Math”

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In defending against software audits initiated by publishers such as Microsoft or IBM, many businesses make the mistake of assuming that those publishers or their designated auditors know what they are talking about when it comes to determining what licenses need to be purchased in order to achieve compliance. After all, the companies that wrote…

202208.08
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Control Software Audit Disclosures By Keeping an Eye on the Audited Entity

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In many cases where we are retained to assist companies targeted for software audits after software-deployment data already has been submitted to the auditing entities, we have the regrettable obligation to let our clients know that they have disclosed too much. Over-disclosure can cost a company millions of dollars, and it is typically very difficult…

202207.25
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Fundamentals of Software Audit Data Collection – Virtualization Inventory

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In order to effectively manage their software usage and to mitigate compliance exposure, companies need to know how to gather and analyze information regarding their product usage. While some software products may have unique data-collection requirements that ordinarily would not be applicable for other products, usage levels for many products can be measured using a…

202207.18
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Not All Software Audits Protected By Privilege

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Companies faced with a demand for a software audit from a software publisher or an entity such as the Business Software Alliance or Software & Information Industry Association are increasingly turning to their own internal IT departments or hiring technology consultants to conduct software audits, the results of which may be discoverable in future litigation….