The BSA | The Software Alliance (“the BSA”) investigates claims of software copyright infringement behalf of its member software publishers to determine whether any companies end users have unlicensed software installed in violation of The Copyright Act. The BSA has been granted a power of attorney to pursue claims relating to copyright infringement on behalf…
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 limited in frequency or scope, to demand access to the systems where its products are installed or a report of…
There is a set of related questions our software-audit clients frequently ask us that boil down to variations on one or more of the following: Why am I being audited? What if anything did I do to cause this? How can I avoid it in the future? Unfortunately, those questions often do not have clear…
One of the top ten questions asked by my clients is “How long does the self-audit process take from start to finish?” Of course I give the standard lawyer answer: it depends. Here are the steps to a typical software audit. Preparation of Audit Materials (3 to 6 months) A software audit is a request,…
The most common mistake we encounter in software audits is the failure to compile and produce accurate installation information. Like all technology projects, collecting the information to produce in response to a request for an audit can be very complicated and time consuming. To begin the audit process, it is necessary for the company to…
Many businesses expend far too little effort in securing appropriate non-disclosure agreements during software audits. Some businesses even wholly overlook NDAs during the audit process, believing that they have no leverage to demand reasonable protections for the information that the auditors will ask them to provide. This is a mistake that can cost a company…
