I don’t know the nature of your business Timex, but if you are doing business with US companies then you don’t need to worry about them using pirated software because they almost certainly aren’t doing that. It only takes one disgruntled employee to report a company’s pirating to the feds and that company is out a lot of money. Also your contractual documents may cover the situation anyway.
Let’s keep the discussion straight. I at least am talking about where a US company outsources to a foreign company and in that statement of work, the US company is asking for a product/service that would require the use of software to complete. So no, it’s not just Microsoft, although they have the most to lose. And I don’t know how much Oracle, SAP, and other large software companies’ software is used in foreign countries. Probably not much because they need a lot of training to work. Adobe is probably on board with this because of the rampant pirating of Photoshop too.
In the end, the software companies who care about this will have to provide the means to enforce it, unless they are going to make it a criminal law which is not what I read. Nothing is going to happen to companies who use the products of pirated companies unless (mostly likely Microsoft) will go after them.
It kind of reminds me too of child labor at the turn of the 20th century. Everybody used kids to work until there were laws passed against it. Then as companies became more aware of the law, they stopped using kids to work and figured out other ways to make their products. If this law can allow US companies to compete on a more fair basis I’m all for it.
I’m an attorney, and I do M&A work. I buy and sell companies all the time. We engage in extensive due diligence, that costs tens of thousands of dollars each acquisition (hundreds for the large acquisitions, and I’m talking about just the costs for the due diligence, not the deal as a whole).
It is still very routine to find U.S. companies with tons of unauthorized/pirated software.
Ya, the idea that software piracy doesn’t happen in the us is false, so we would in fact have to worry about it if we suddenly became liable for their crimes, and it would be impossible for us to audit those companies for every piece of software they own.
I’m sure your company has standard contract clauses (have you read them btw) that would absolve them of responsibility. The problem in this case is that those clauses are not enforceable outside of the US.
While we’re at it, let’s prosecute US companies that deal with overseas companies that pay less than the US minimum wage. Globalization is nasty but Intellectual Property is a bizarre place to start curbing its effects.
So basically the entire undeveloped world? Not so sure that legislating American businesses out of foreign dealings a good way to increase the standard of living in poverty stricken nations.
If you’re going to make an already bizarre statement like this, at least talk about relative PPP or something.
I think that I failed to convey the tone of that last post. The whole point of globalization is to make considerations like reasonable wages and IP law into externalities that don’t need to be addressed by the organization in question.
IP law seems an odd place to start pushing back against this particular tide to me. That’s all.
