This document highlights some issues concerning software copyright establishes procedures which we suggest that you put into practise to ensure that you meet legal obligations under the Australian Copyright Act 1968. NOTE: There may be variations in other countries across the World, however the basic principles will be the same.
The Australian Copyright Act 1968 provides strong legal protection for the intellectual property rights of developers and licensed distributors of software. An organisation can face fines of up to $250,000 if convicted of infringing software copyright. Similarly, an individual employee can be convicted of a criminal offence with fines of up to $50,000 and/or six months imprisonment if they are a party to such infringement.
In Australia there are two "policing bodies". The Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA) and The Software Publishers Association (SPA). In addition Microsoft Australia and Novell Australia also take action in their own rights when they detect that their respective software is being used illegally. How do they do this? Why not check out the home page of the Business Software Alliance or for the Australian site yiou need to e-mail them at Business Software Assciation of Australia.
Other sites that you need to check out to find out what is going on in the anti-piracy arena are the Software Publishers Association Microsoft Novell Autocad
You can report instances of software piracy direct to 
using
the on-line report form provided.
In Australia there has been well over 70 successful cases of anti-piracy action to date and the BSAA hasn't lost a case yet! many of these cases have resulted directly from "tip-offs" to the BSAA toll-free hotline phone number 1800 021 143. They offer a reward of $2,000 where cases of sucsessful prosecution occur. (As at June 1997 - Conditions apply)
In practice, the actual fines levied have been below the maximum amounts stated in the Copyright Act 1968 HOWEVER, this does not take into account the costs of disruption to current work levels, legal fees of defence, court costs, re-construction of records and also purchasing the right amount of software to cover that which is already in use.
The software industry has become increasingly vigilant in this area. A number of organisations, including some Government departments and agencies, have been subject to un-announced audits of their software. This includes dealers, home users, TAFES, Local Government councils, Government agencies and business houses.
You may have already set up procedures to ensure copyright law is complied with. These procedures may have been based on recommendations from the Business Software Association of Australia (BSAA) and/or the Software Publishers Association (SPA). The procedures are designed to provide a primary benefit by reducing the risk of “virus attack and infection” from software viruses either delivered from exchange of software disks or downloaded from the Internet.
Other benefits of software compliance policy are the ability to upgrade software direct from suppliers, ownership of discs and manuals and protection for staff, management and directors against wrongful actions taken by dis-gruntled employees.
The adoption of a software compliance policy is designed to cover other issues such as shareware, freeware and games as well as screen-savers and pornographic picture files, all of which are regarded as "un-authorised software" and their usage will be monitored and policed under the policy. Actions can be taken for "porno pictures" under the Equal Employment Opportunity and Sexual Discrimination Acts that are in force across Australia. There has already been one case of this in 1995/6 in Australia.
The implementation of software compliance policy can also help to contain software costs due to standardisation of packages and platforms and allowing organisations to take advantage of various bulk software licensing arrangements that are provided by vendors from time to time.
Hand-in-hand with the software compliance policy should be procedures which apply for all software used on an organisation's computer equipment, including notebook computers used at home by staff.. This should include all computer equipment managed by the various units or branch offices, regardless of the ownership of the equipment or the means by which it was acquired.
Some basic procedures are:
- No software is to be loaded on the organisations computers without prior authorisation of management. This includes software which could be acquired from outside organisations, shareware, freeware, friends, branch offices, employee homes or the Internet. This includes the loading of home computers for "work use at home" of an organisations software.
- All requests for new software, whether through purchase or other means, should be under centralised control..
- All orders for the purchase of software prior approval according to budget and financial requirements.
- All original CD's and disks of software and records of software licenses as well as invoices showing proof of purchase are to be logged to a centralised asset register and kept in a secure environment. Backup copies likewise are to be stored in a centralised manner.
- Regular spot audits are to be undertaken of selected hardware to verify software installed is legally acquired.
- Should "un-announced audits" occur due to external parties using an Anton Piller order (Federal Court granted) arriving at the "front door" then contact senior management immediately.
- All employees should sign a software usage and policy agreement as a condition of their employment.
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