Software Piracy: What happens when you get busted?

[mud]

The situation:

I work at a place where the last MIS "consultant" installed pirated software. He also did a number of other stupid things and soon left the company.

We have about 20 networked pc's running win98se and office 2000. and one nt4.0 file server. (some of the win98 cd's and licenses can be found. NT and O2K are completely pirated)

if a disgruntled employee or some competitor reported us to the SPA or MS, what would happen? Would they even care since we're so small?

right now cash flow is negative, and purchasing everything outright is very difficult.

should i buy a few copies just in case? Should I be paranoid? What are the risks?

What could happen? Could the FBI show up at my door with a warrant and audit all our computers?

we also have about 15 or so laptops. I probably can't find any of the paperwork for them, but i figure they all came with preinstalled software, im not too worried.


Thanks for any comments or advice!!!

 

[DefRef]

#1: COVER YOUR BUTT!!! If the management knows about this, send them a memo (keep a copy, natch) detailing how you believe they need to get right with the licenses. That way if they try to blame YOU, you're covered against being a scapegoat and are protected by whistleblower laws.

 

[Homer]

I'll second that, because if you get caught, your name is.... mud!

 

[dimsum]

yeap.. i guess we can say bye-bye for now...
but really, get yourself cover. why would a company want to protect you if you can save all their problem by just pointing the finger at you?

 

[jimmygates]

A company I know got caught by MS for using pirated software. They got sued $1 mill. Very ouch...




-Jimbo

 

[Argo]

My company has about 2000 computers. The subnet that I'm responsible for contains 100 computers, and all of them were running win NT. A couple of months ago, I decided to purchase Win2k server (we already had site license for win2k pro). I got the server with 110 Client Access Licenses, through Dell. In a few days I recieved the CD containing the server, but neither the server license, nor 110 CALs showed up. So I called Dell support, asking what's up with our licenses, and he goes like: "Forget about it, just install the software and you should be OK". LMAO.