Fight piracy by being a snitch

He's Watching YouPsst, buddy! Wanna make a quick $3,200? All you need to do is rat out someone you know who’s illegally using commercial software.

The Business Software Alliance which represents many of the big names in commercial software — Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, and many more — has for years been coercing companies into submitting to voluntary software audits, in the hopes that software piracy might be discovered and prosecuted. They’ve also been pushing their “Know It, Report It, Reward It” program to get people to inform them of software piracy. Reward payouts in 2008 totaled $136,100. The payouts from 2008 amount to almost 6 times those from 2007, where a meager $23,000 was handed out to snitches.

Some speculate that as economic hard times continue, businesses will skimp on their IT spending, and instead use inappropriately acquired software. Or maybe folks could just hold off buying Adobe Creative Suite 4 if their current copies of Creative Suite 3 are still getting the job done?

I don’t condone software piracy, but I also don’t condone being a snitch. Maybe instead of ratting out your employer for a quick buck, you could help your employer investigate whether any Free Software would be good enough to get the job done, at least until such time as legitimate copies of the necessary applications could be licensed. Then your boss will see you’re a team player, and then you’re on your way to corporate success! And it’s that kind of Can Do! attitude — not that of the lazy snitch — on which this country was built!

Via L.A. Times