[ale] B$A and Ernie Ball electric guitars

[Marvin Dickens]

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 01:54:41 -0500
Bob Toxen <bob at verysecurelinux.com> wrote the following:

> On Tue, Mar 18, 2003 at 11:47:11AM -0800, Marvin Dickens wrote:
> > Hello everybody!
> 
> 
> > "Two years ago, the maker of Ernie Ball electric guitars and strings
> > was slapped with a $90,000 fine by the Business Software Alliance for
> > what the company says was unwitting use of eight unlicensed copies of
> > Microsoft Office.
> 
> If anybody *knows* the details, please explain:
> 
> 1. How the BSA (who has no legal authority) can talk a company into
>    giving up $11,000 per unlicensed copy of software that retails for
>    maybe $1,000 each?  Why didn't they say "go sue us"?

Most software licenses ask for triple damages in the event of a contractual breach. So out the gate your at 3K a slice for a total of approximately 24K. If you say "Sue us", you gonna loose because you agreed to the terms of the license and it was violated. Further, when you go to court regarding contractual tort and loose, the chances are about 97% that the court is gonna make you pay all legal fees for the plaintiff as well as court costs. Add this to paying your own lawyer(s) and your looking at something between 250K to 500K+ in losses.

Ernie Ball had the money so he paid it to avoid further monetary cost. He licked his wounds and moved on and in the process discovered open source software.



> 2. Why anyone would let the BSA goons in without first checking their
>    system?

I'm not sure how they managed this one, but I'd bet it's somewhere in the EULA that specifies that MS or an agent of MS has the right to check. 

Best


Marvin
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