Licensing Audits

By Joshua Erdman
Digital Foundation, inc.

What?! I can get audited? Yes you can. Microsoft has a legal department dedicated to the prosecution of Software Pirating.

How many people actually read the EULA (End User License Agreement) when installing software? OK and those of you that actually ready it, do you understand what you are reading? What you may not know is that by installing the software you accept the terms of its use and you agree to allow Microsoft to audit the use of any Microsoft Software in your company. Who ever thought that the EULA had so much power?

Microsoft has a site dedicated to anti-piracy: http://www.microsoft.com/piracy
Here you can report piracy in action and also get a tool to help you inventory your software. It is called the Microsoft Software Inventory Analyzer.

Fines

You can be fined up to $200,000 per incident and possibly even jail time. For some companies $200,000 is a drop in the bucket but the bad media can be really expensive.

Microsoft Licensing Policies

You can read up on Microsoft's Licensing Polices by going to:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing
Be prepared for extreme boredom. So consume massive quantities of caffeine, take notes so you can see when you last dozed off, and keep a lawyer handy to translate all that legalese.

Article last reviewed: 12/30/2005

Created by: Digital Foundation, inc.

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