Should you use corporate counsel for BSA software audits?

Business Software Alliance ("BSA") software compliance audits - should you use your corporate counsel?

Introduction

In this video, software infringement Attorney Steve Vondran discusses whether or not you should hire a boutique intellectual property law firm to handle your BSA software alliance audit, or go with your own in-house legal counsel.

When your company faces huge liability (sometimes in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars - yes, that's right) you need experienced legal counsel on your team.  With due respect to inside corporate counsel, a software settlement with the BSA (a trade group for major software publishers like Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, CNC and others) is something that can financially drain a company, or even potentially put it out of business.  If your corporate counsel has never negotiated with the regional counsel for the Alliance, it might makes sense to hire an outside law firm focused in software piracy defense.  This podcast provides some general insight.  This is not legal advice and is general legal information only.

Video Resources

1.  What is the Software Alliance?

2.  How to respond to a BSA audit letter

3.  What are the penalties for copyright infringement piracy?

4.  What is Microsoft unbundling?