Snitching is less than golden for piracy informers

We're in the money. Not really

By Drew Cullen • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 31st March 2008 18:43 GMT

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The SIIA (Software & Information Industry Association) calls it "whistleblowing." And we call it "disgruntled peons ratting on their bosses." But whatever label you use, dobbing on your own company for cutting corners on software licenses can be a lucrative sport.

But not for seven American grasses paid up by the SIIA in March. Their "rewards" amounted to a measly $22,500 - between them, with pay-outs ranging from $500 to $10,000.

Disgruntlees can collect up to $1 million for cases with settlement amounts over $20 million - but what large corporation outside Italy, say, or Belgium - would mess around to such an extent with their software licenses?

Last year, the SIIA issued 26 rewards to "individuals who reported incidents of corporate end-user software piracy".

For a country of 300 million people, this seems like a remarkably small number of snitches. So we congratulate the corporations of America for such clean hands and for keeping their workforce so gruntled.

But maybe, just maybe, bounty hunters are spilling the beans elsewhere: the Business Software Alliance also offers up to $1m snitch money. ®

See what The Register's experts have to say on application security