30Mar
Disguised Software Audit Clauses
Agreements often contain clauses allowing the parties to review books and records, “Books and Records” clauses. These are often boilerplate clauses included in agreements without much consideration from the contracting parties. When a Books and...
25Mar
Software Audits: The Importance of Timely Completion of Post-Settlement Obligations
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...
16Mar
Releases of Liability as Part of Licensing Deals – How Hard to Push?
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,...
2Mar
Managing Risks in the Software Audit Process
It has been said that software is the new oil. It fuels the information revolution. And in this metaphor, software audits are the meters that measure the flow—and extract maximum revenue for software makers. The...
25Feb
BSA/SIIA Audits and Software Publisher-Initiated Audits Differ in Important Ways
While the over-arching concept underlying a software audit initiated by a publisher like Microsoft or IBM is the same as that in an audit initiated by the BSA | The Software Alliance or the Software...
19Feb
When an Audit is Not an Audit, Think Twice About Participating
In the software licensing world, all audits are not created equal. On one hand are the “true,” contractual audits. Here, the applicable license agreement gives the software publisher the right, usually upon notice and sometimes...
