Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Tuesday 2/10/2001

Hell hath no fury like an IT journo with dented pride. No names, no compulsory licensing audit, but news reaches us of one particularly prominent IT hack who was shopped to the Business Software Alliance for running lots of software in a bad boy style. The BSA is the industry group that puts the frighteners on people who don't play ball, and it accepts tip-offs via its website: one such fingered our pal. Now the outraged chap is also something of a software developer, and does indeed have mammoth amounts of review, production and test software running on his immensely butch home network -- all, needless to say, immensely legal. In fact, he is known for declaiming loudly that all IT journalists should buy everything they test, which leads one to suspect that whoever shopped him had something of a sense of irony.

But was this anonymous fingering the reason for his ire? No. Although not best pleased by grumpy emails from the BSA, his gander was got by what happened next. He phoned back in his best "I stride the corridors of power, am on Bill Gates' Christmas card list and can make or break empires with one stroke of my mouse" mode, and said "It's ludicrous! Don't you know who I am?" And the bleeders at the BSA said "Nope." (not as good as "No, sir, but I'll make enquiries and inform you as quickly as possible").

You might think that the group of journalists among whom this was discussed subsequently would be horrified by the possibility of abuse of this online shopping service. Alas, no. They ended up taking votes as to who they'd like to shaft this way next time.