Autodesk Raid?

jocose

This guy claims Autodesk raided his work and fined them for downloading trail software?

Anyone know anything about this or is this rubbish?

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/showthread.php?t=178180

jrs100000

No idea about this case, but I do know they were trying to strong arm several Blender only studios in India a while ago. Apparently they will raid any business that produces 3d content and doesnt own enough Autodesk licenses.

gavku

Probably true...i know of a studio that was approached by those same three comapnies.

low odor

sounds like bullshit.....who lets 4 guys claming to be reps come in and just look at the software on their workstations. ...if they had cops and a warrant..yeah..but the guys says: "Four people came: together they represented Microsoft, Adobe and Autodesk."

I wonder if the reps were Nigerian?

Ok I kept reading...said they were cops...

jocose

Yeah if there weren't cops and it was just the Autodesk's secret police busting into someones office, although hilarious, it would definitely be BS.

Murdoc

Didn't crytek have that problem just before Farcry 1?

jocose

Murdoc wrote: »

Didn't crytek have that problem just before Farcry 1?

LOL, yeah they sure did: http://www.megagames.com/news/html/pc/crytekraidofficialcomments.shtml

rollin

question is which kind of law is used there

do they have to prove they havn´t done something commercial with the trails

or do the software companys have to prove it


but would be great to get more information about that case and a statement from adsk adobe..

deinstalling the trails a day before the "police" comes looks always bit suspicious

kwakkie

I remember this happened during my internship at a game company... They got fined because programmers installed a trial version of Autodesk Viz to test/make some minor changes, so assets didnt have to go back and forth between artists and coders x times.
The fine was pretty high, but I cant remember the exact amount(in the thousands of euros).

They just walked in with 2 guys, asked for the manager, showed him some papers and went around checking everybody's program files(seriously, I think if you renamed you autodesk folder they would have thought you didnt have any of their products installed).

rolfness

Ive heard of this before, in parts of asia piracy is so rampant that governments have bowed to pressure from companies like MS and Adobe, and they have police that go around and raid offices and check licenses on installed software. But most of these countries are also corrupt as hell, Ive heard stories where the office to be raided gets a friendly call from the police before its busted so that the appropriate palm greasing can take place, the police raid will then not take place or they will show up and have coffee and a nice chat and leave doing nothing.

kat

rollin wrote: »

question is which kind of law is used there
do they have to prove they havn´t done something commercial with the trails
or do the software companys have to prove it
but would be great to get more information about that case and a statement from adsk adobe..

deinstalling the trails a day before the "police" comes looks always bit suspicious

Based on what's written in those snippets of the EULA posted, simply having the trail versions loaded on to machines in a commercial environment appears to be enough to warrant an 'audit'. It does also say that they (Autodesk) are supposed to give "reasonable notice" of an audit being initiated so without looking at the rest of the EULA spot checks aren't part of the contractual agreement. Being "tipped off" could be argued that Autodesk broke their end of the contract.

9.6 Audits. To ensure compliance with this Agreement, You agree that upon reasonable notice, Autodesk or Autodesk’s authorized representative shall have the right to inspect and audit Your Installation, Access, and use of the Autodesk Materials

It does raise the question of just how do commercial outfits test products, are there special versions for that purpose? And just how do you prove use (or not), other than just pointing a finger and accusing without actual hard evidence of the fact?

I'm glad I use Blender.

Lamont

I dealt with this at a past employer. Not fun. Even when you're in compliance, you're still guilty. And even after we proved we were innocent, they still wanted to "settle the matter". After a few months of not hearing from them they tried to bully us with their auditing software to "keep us in compliance", which was about $15~$20k.

They (BSA) would NOT leave us alone. Kept hounding us month after month, and eventually, the company I worked for settled (after 4 years of this nonsense) just to get them off their back, or so they thought. Last I heard they are still hounding them for stuff back in 2002.

I think they carpet-bombed the CG industry back in 2002~2003 with letters stating: "We know you have some of the following illegally installed on one or more workstation. Give us this much cash and we will not come after you.". A friend of mine who is a dentist in the Bay Area got the same letter we did. Not even close to the CG industry. Also a few friends in LA studios got the letters. Some people settled out of fear. From what I heard, the money doesn't even go to the companies, it goes right to the lawyers (BSA).

Justin Meisse

Yeah, these groups tend to focus on one industry at a time and just raep as many people as they can

Gilgamesh

I think if you renamed you autodesk folder they would have thought you didnt have any of their products installed).

Actually plenty of ways to see if their products are installed even if you do that, like lisence files (they exist even if you don't lisence a product) and registry details as well (which persist even after uninstalling the products).

Based on what's written in those snippets of the EULA posted, simply having the trail versions loaded on to machines in a commercial environment appears to be enough to warrant an 'audit'. It does also say that they (Autodesk) are supposed to give "reasonable notice" of an audit being initiated so without looking at the rest of the EULA spot checks aren't part of the contractual agreement. Being "tipped off" could be argued that Autodesk broke their end of the contract.

I think in american law a Gold farming company from korea proved that hte EULA isn't actually a legally binding document even if you click accept. I'll dig up the legal references if people are interested but doing crap like this just makes me wanna not pay em a cent and go free to use programs, they wonder people pirate their software lol.

Daaark

If you actually read that whole thread, the guy was guilty in the end, just in denial.

Kev_Boy

Define "guilty'?

Did I do something that was against the EULA, yes I did, I'll bet you can't find one person who hasn't violated on in his lifetime.

We did not do anything commercial with Maya PLEs.
We did not do anything commercial with 3ds Max 30-day trial.
We did not do anything commercial with our 2009 Inventor after upgrading to 2010 Inventor.

The image in question was one I made at home, hobbyistically, and we included it in printed pamphlets to show we have the skills to do such work. If we actually were to do such work and the license wouldn't be available at the company's office that offer the work, then we would have of course purchased a seat of 3ds or maya.

We did nothing fundamentally illegal or wrong, it does not weigh up to the amount of the fine.
And the ambiguity of being able to download trial versions straight off autodesk's own website, and be required to enter company information in order to legally download it, that's just all wrong.

kat

Lamont wrote: »

I dealt with this at a past employer. Not fun. Even when you're in compliance, you're still guilty. And even after we proved we were innocent, they still wanted to "settle the matter". After a few months of not hearing from them they tried to bully us with their auditing software to "keep us in compliance", which was about $15~$20k.

They (BSA) would NOT leave us alone. Kept hounding us month after month, and eventually, the company I worked for settled (after 4 years of this nonsense) just to get them off their back, or so they thought. Last I heard they are still hounding them for stuff back in 2002.

I think they carpet-bombed the CG industry back in 2002~2003 with letters stating: "We know you have some of the following illegally installed on one or more workstation. Give us this much cash and we will not come after you.". A friend of mine who is a dentist in the Bay Area got the same letter we did. Not even close to the CG industry. Also a few friends in LA studios got the letters. Some people settled out of fear. From what I heard, the money doesn't even go to the companies, it goes right to the lawyers (BSA).

At face value isn't this exactly what the RIAA/media industry did with supposed pirates? It got so bad the law firm at the center of the action was banned in a couple of EU member states iirc, I think even the UK had sharp words to say about the practice.

@ Gilgamesh: I'd be interested in seeing that if you've got it to hand, don't bust a gut to post it though if you have to spend age looking for it.