Tools for Employers

BSA believes most businesses are ethical, but unfortunately, not all may understand that good corporate governance means a good system of checks and balances throughout the organization to ensure ethical and legal operations.

Remember, software asset management (SAM) has far reaching implications for your business. Well-implemented SAM allows for significant cost savings, not only in direct expenditure on software, but also in related process and infrastructure costs. It puts companies in a stronger negotiating position with software manufacturers and improves software purchasing arrangements.

In addition, SAM enables more strategic infrastructure planning, prevents over-licensing and identifies over-deployment of hardware while reducing the IT administrative and support burden with its associated costs. It also allows the IT department to control exactly what software an employee has access to and significantly reduces the opportunity for users to introduce unlicensed software to your network.

Below are numerous tools you’ll need to help you implement an effective SAM policy within your organization. Be sure to point your network manager in the direction of our "Tools for IT Managers."

Smart About Software: Software Strategies for Small Businesses
To help American small businesses avoid the risks of software piracy, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) are partnering for a multi-year education program, Smart About Software: Software Strategies for Small Businesses. By using the tools and tips for responsible management available on this website, small businesses can protect themselves from the legal and financial consequences of using unlicensed software.

SAM Power Point for Employees (PPT)
Communicate to your employees the importance of software audits, software compliance and licensing. It will help prevent the risks associated with workplace software piracy.

SAM Employee Policy
An employee policy on software management can help a business avoid the risk.

SAM Employee Memorandum
This memo is a companion to the employee policy.

Workroom Posters
Posting a software piracy reminder on an office workroom bulletin board or above a computer station is always helpful.

Ten Reasons It's Important to Be A Responsible Software User

7 Tips for Preventing Software Piracy

Web Sites for Professional Groups

Accounting

Architecture

Banking

Engineering

Graphic Design

Legal

What is Software Piracy

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers. What a lot of people don't realize or don't think about is that when you purchase software, you are actually purchasing a license to use it, not the actual software. That license is what tells you how many times you can install the software, so it's important to read it. If you make more copies of the software than the license permits, you are pirating.

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