Overseas Invasion

"I generally handle cases for both Microsoft and the BSA," Gonsalves told Mother Jones.

But while the suit alleged that Toll illegally used copies of programs made by Lotus, Novell, Symantec, and Microsoft, Martin Dunne, Toll's chief information technology officer, says the company settled by paying fines to only Symantec and Microsoft. And, Dunne says, other than keeping Symantec's anti-virus software, the company has made a significant change: Toll only buys Microsoft now.

According to a Novell official, Toll "offered to legalize on all Microsoft products if [the BSA] dropped the suit." Both the BSA and Toll deny any impropriety. While a written agreement between Toll and Gonsalves does exist, neither party would reveal the terms of the settlement. When Gonsalves was asked if Microsoft ever paid for his handling of BSA cases, he chuckled and said, "That's a confidential matter."

These allegations "raise questions as to whether the BSA serves the interest of its members or whether it serves its dominant member," says James Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology. And for the foreign companies, he says, "these seem to be stories of blackmail."

The BSA employs a team of more than 100 lawyers and investigators to find cases of software piracy—a crime it says costs the industry $11 billion a year. The BSA says it catches "thousands of cases a year," many through its 55 piracy hotlines, the most famous of which urges employees to "Nail Your Boss" by calling.

While the BSA won't release its funding details, it does say that money comes from membership dues, which are based on each company's software revenues. This is one way in which Microsoft dominates the BSA: Microsoft's annual revenues, for example, are eight times that of Novell, its largest rival.

In the future, Novell and Lotus say they will use their own in-house resources for anti-piracy efforts in Asia and Latin America.

But other BSA members, while concerned about Microsoft's role in the organization, aren't quite willing to go their own way. Greg Wrenn, senior corporate counsel for Adobe, says his company has stayed with the BSA despite having had some uneasy experiences with Microsoft. For example, Wrenn says, the Microsoft attorneys who worked for the BSA refrained from going after big Microsoft clients caught pirating Adobe products—until Adobe prodded them.

Wrenn says Adobe will stay in the BSA, pressuring the organization to play fair. But he acknowledges Microsoft's upper hand. "If an attorney does Microsoft work and BSA work and never hears from another company besides Microsoft, he's going to do the work for the guy who's in his office every week," Wrenn says.