When people don't take laws seriously pt 1 - licences
For some reason, and I'm at a total loss to explain this, people just do not take "rules" and laws surrounding computing seriously.
I'm not sure if this is down to ignorance, or some kind of belief that "it doesn't matter" or what, but I myself have actually seen people who would rather die than be accused of stealing as much as a penny blindly suggest breaking licence laws to the tune of thousands of pounds.
Today, a colleague on another site tells me of someone who had purchased one licence for a package and then wanting their IT department to install it on several computers. And getting upset when told "No, sorry we can't" and having the reason explained to them. I've experienced this myself in fact, even to the point of people complaining that I'm being "unhelpful" and "obstructive" because I refuse to aid them in a criminal venture. Pardon my honesty, folks!
I want to make it clear: this behaviour isn't limited to academica by any means, I've seen it when I've worked in business just as often as I've seen it when I've worked in education. The vendors themselves are not without blame here either; when you can ring 5 different "Vendor authorised specialist" suppliers with a licencing question and get 5 different answers you have to wonder if the licence schemes aren't maybe a little too difficult for most people to understand?
It's all well and good to mis-understand licence terms. It's all well and good to disagree with the terms of a licence and feel that the vendor is profiteering. But at no time does it become OK to knowingly break the law and especially not to solicit others to do so on your behalf!