Dodgy software – do you have a Cluedo?

10 May 2006

It was Professor Plum in the library with the Black and Decker power drill. Or in this case perhaps, the temp we hired to fill in for someone on maternity leave.

That hardy annual of board games, Cluedo, has rented itself out to the Business Software Alliance as an entertaining and educational way to learn of the risks to business of illegal software and how to protect against it.

Visit http://global.bsa.org/softwarecluedo/ and don your deerstalker to hunt down the dodgy software in an imaginary company. Players assume the role of the managing director and get to wander around the building (sounds familiar so far) trying to work out where the illegal software is and who is responsible.

Causes of software piracy can occur due to such things as licence duplication or, in many cases, ignorance.

By identifying the culprit as quickly as possible, players of the Business Software Alliance game can register their score and be entered into a weekly prize competition. At the end of the game, players can also report software piracy or visit www.justasksam.co.uk for more information on implementing software asset management. The site also includes free ‘health check’ and software auditing tools.