When an infraction to the software licensing rules and regulations has been found a penalty from the publisher can be imposed on the guilty party. These are by no means small amounts! Publishers call this ‘deficiency’ and software houses calculate these fees based on the level of compliance, which they do even before you have received notice from them. They are open to negotiations however in order to decrease the fine, but at the end of the day you will have to pay, if you don’t you wont have a system to work from and this could mean no business.
How you are found out is usually by word of mouth and this comes mainly from disgruntled employees or business associates. In fact there are organisations who advertise for this information. To be fair though, often companies are not aware that their employees are loading their computers with unlicensed software, so when these disgruntled employees turn their former employers over it comes as a surprise, but surprised or not, the ultimate responsibility for unlicensed software lies squarely with management.
The only way to avoid non compliance issues is for management to ‘police’ their employee’s computers. Another way to get caught is Software installed on any computer that is hooked up to the internet conducts a form of dialogue with its software publisher; this is without your permission.
In order to avoid penalties, keep accurate records of licence agreements because even if you are on the level, if you can’t prove you own the licence you can be penalised. You also have to agree to the terms of the licence, understand them and comply to them. This can straightforward or very complex, especially in large companies. That is why outsourcing at least this part of your IT support can be very useful, saving you time and hassle.
