Understanding Software License Agreements To Avoid BSA Or SIIA Software Audits

Recent trends indicate that software publishers are increasingly initiating direct software audits instead of outsourcing the auditing process to entities such as the BSA | The Software Alliance ("BSA") or Software & Information Industry Association ("SIIA"). However, the BSA and SIIA continue to actively target companies of all sizes to determine whether the company is committing copyright infringement by failing to comply with software licenses.

As part of software compliance initiatives, many companies enter into agreements directly with publishers such as Microsoft or Adobe to license the network. It is important to understand and become familiar with the terms of these license agreements, because the audit provisions contained therein may exempt a company from engaging in a BSA or SIIA audit for that particular publisher.