Design firms are being caught as software pirates, and practitioners should know their rights and responsibilities long before trouble strikes By Cecilia Alers and James E. Frankel, Esq. You may suspect it by now. Purchasing and upgrading hardware and software to run your architectural or interior design firm is probably one of the single largest line items on your budget. Each decision to add staff or upgrade software is affected by the tolerance for an increase to this expense line item. Not surprisingly, software piracy has become a large problem for the companies which produce and sell software to the design community.
Software publishers claim to lose billions of dollars in revenue to software pirates each year.
They have also empowered others to protect their interests. The software piracy police have concentrated their efforts within the construction industry because of the proliferation of unintentional and intentional piracy, which has resulted in large settlements from those firms who violate copyright laws. However, we believe it is time to recognize the distinction between the intentional copyright infringer and the unintentional infringer, when negotiating resolutions with either the software companies or their policing entities. Those of you who have received a letter from one of the agencies who enforce software piracy will not soon forget the heavy handed tone of the letter and the threats of U.S. Marshals arriving at your office with a court order to seize your computers if you don't comply with their demands. The threat of seizing control of the computers of a design firm is daunting.