I recently recieved a letter from the Business Software Alliance stating that they have called a "truce" and that I may apply for license's for any unregisitered/unlicensed software.
http://www.bsa.org

Now here's where it gets a little vague, The second page goes on to explain how copyright laws are being infringed upon by making and distributing pirated copies of software. Blah Blah Blah you cant install on 100 computers and so on.
Yes that I understand.
What I dont understand is, what about the installed software that came with the computer and what if I bought software from a friend who had no need for it. I have a license, but the people who made it only got paid once. What about software I have downloaded and paid for but have no paper license?

I could not find any info on these 3 topics.
Oh and it goes on with a threat of a 150,000 dollar fine and/or jail time.
This smells rotten to me. Any thoughts?

hello there...

first of all, the bsa talks a lot of pre-mature threats.. they are not the police they have no rights; they can only pass stuff on

saying they want a truce makes them vulnerable

passing on software asking others money for it, hmm i'm not sure about this.. the company gets paid for the license once, but if the 'seller' deletes the software and the 'buyer' installs it there's still only 1 person using the software - i'm not sure if it works like that though

you should ask some law dude really

the 150g and jailtime is just another threatment..
i'm not saying you shouldn't take this serious at all; but bsa is about a lot of propaganda and less action..