How many of your fellow employees, former employees, vendors, competitors, even former spouses would be willing to report your company for copyright violations when they are offered a $1,000,000 reward? You may be surprised. On the other hand - so will the so-called whistle-blowers. The software piracy and copyright enforcement groups are aggressively searching for you and your company. You may thinkj you have everything under control--but think again: The rules are hidden behind so much smoke and mirrors that virtually ANY company is exposed to a piracy audit.

There are a couple things going on with the initial paragraph of this entry.  First of all, anyone – anyone – who possesses enough credible information about your tech environment can report you for copyright violations.  Disgruntled current or former employees?  Retirees who have been denied their benefits?  Consultants who have dropped by to help out?  Temporary workers?  Resellers? Ethical employees?  That former spouse?  Your rather cunning brother-in-law?  How about that college intern? Pick one – or more – and they can represent a substantial financial threat.

The next problem is that these prospective whistle-blowers are being carefully led to believe that they need merely “drop a dime” on you and your company to reap that $1.000,000 reward for reporting piracy.  Guess what: The odds are very high that they’re not going to get the $1M.  In fact, according to the very very few published reward announcements we have been able to locate, your friendly neighborhood whistle-blower will be lucky to get $3k to $5k for their efforts.  (Rewards delivered seem to be based on some obscure--as in top secret?--formula based on a percentage of the settlement, or something, or other...) While the enforcement groups openly publicize their percentages, they somehow fail to mention a few rather critical settlement facts that will pretty much negate the possible reward. (The software piracy auditors tend not to reveal these super cosmic secrets.)

The bottom line is this: The rewards offered certainly appear to be pretty much of a fantasy when compared to the rewards actually delivered. (Nick Machiavelli would have been so proud.)

Want to discuss your options for avoiding these and other problems?  Let us know & we’ll follow up on your specific questions or observations. Please feel comfortable ask ing us questions--We'll do our best to answer. I'm Alan L. Plastow and we are here to help you succeed!