Despite living in an era of social media (where there are seemingly more ways of sharing information than there are people), I'm amazed by how little substantive conversation there is on the topic of license compliance. Of course, there is plenty of discussion about software piracy - unfortunately for software vendors, the vast majority of it falls under "how to," "where to find cracked software" or "why it's my right to use unlicensed software."

Trust us, we understand the reluctance to discuss license compliance and software piracy from the software vendor perspective. It is a sensitive topic. No one wants to acknowledge that customers are overusing or potential customers are pirating their software - even though every software vendor faces these issues. But here's the source of my confusion: this is an industry problem, yet with the exception of the EDA Consortium's Anti-Piracy Committee, it does not seem like anyone is really discussing these issues outside the walls of their own companies.

We do a lot to spur some of this conversation, hosting in-person events like our Third Annual License Compliance luncheon in San Jose, so we are excited to host a License Compliance panel discussion and reception on May 1 right here in our backyard at the Westin Waltham (reserve your seat today!).




We have some great guest speakers participating: Andy Clarkson, Director, Anti-Piracy and Compliance WW at Dassault Systèmes, Kimberly Herman, partner at Sullivan & Worcester, and JP Seuren of Software Compliance Group. We are also trying a different format - unlike our annual luncheons in San Jose, we are starting with the panel at 2:00 p.m. and hosting a reception with drinks and food immediately afterward. It is going to be a great opportunity to network with your peers, meet our guest speakers and have great discussions about license compliance that are not always possible online. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

One of the best lessons you learn as a parent is to "pick your battles." You only have so much energy and (emotional) capital to spend so it is important to make sure the battle is on a significant issue and that the outcome will yield positive (hopefully long term) results.

The same is true in the world of license compliance and software piracy. You only have so many resources to address these issues and it can be hard picking the right battles to fight. Do you focus on software protection or software intelligence? Do you focus on infringers where settlements are harder or easier?

Software Protection vs. Software Intelligence

We believe there must be a balance in the deployment of software protection, license enforcement, compliance programs, and software intelligence. Many software vendors invest in licensing and add software protection when they realize their applications are being cracked and made available through vast and decentralized piracy distribution channels. It is often an emotional response that ignores challenges with software protection:

• Significant cost of ownership: applying software protection is not a one-time operation. Software vendors need to dedicate internal resources to become software protection experts and continually jitter or modify the protection to stay ahead of the cracker community.
• Protection ceiling: although protection can be increased by adding "more" protection, software vendors discover there is a limit to adding more protection features to respond to new threats without negatively impacting application performance and customer usability.

On the other hand, Software Intelligence enables software vendors to respond to these issues by making data-driven decisions based on the information they collect. They have better insight into where their vulnerabilities lie, but also the license revenue opportunity that exists by pursuing the infringers of their software.

Picking the Right Battles by Identifying the Best Targets

Collecting software intelligence is a critical component, but you also need to be able to organize, analyze and prioritize your data so you can identify the best opportunities for a successful outcome. We recently announced CodeArmor Intelligence 3.4 and the enhanced reporting available within our Compliance Dashboard. For example, we added new functionality to our compliance dashboard to clearly display the precise number of unique machines alongside a complete history of software use. This allows investigators to visually filter and pinpoint the most active machines within a target organization environment. Armed with this insight into the data, a software vendor's compliance team (or compliance partner) can begin recovering license revenue and adding new customers.

Michael Goff
V.i. Labs