The Terms
As distributed in August of 2004, the AutoCad 2005 end user license agreement read:
9.5 Audits. To ensure compliance with this Agreement, You agree that upon reasonable notice, Autodesk or Autodesk's authorized representative shall have the right in inspect and audit Your Installation, Access and use of the Software. Any such inspection or audit shall be conducted during regular business hours at Your facilities or electronically. If such inspections or audits disclose that You have Installed, Accessed or permitted Access to the Software on Computer(s) in a manner that is not permitted under this Agreement, then Autodesk may terminate this Agreement immediately and You are liable to pay for any unpaid license fees as well as the reasonable costs of the audit. Nothing in this section shall be deemed to limit any legal or equitable remedies available to Autodesk for violation of this Agreement or applicable law.
As distributed and posted on Adobe's website in August of 2004, the Photoshop CS end user license agreement read:
13. Compliance with Licenses. If you are a business, company or organization, you agree that upon request from Adobe or its authorized representative you will within thirty (30) days fully document and certify that use of any and all Adobe software at the time of the request is in conformity with your valid licenses from Adobe.
Comparison
This is certainly one area where I could use all the reader feedback I can get. The only thing I'm pretty certain of here is that the Adobe compliance term is at least one point better than the Autodesk audit clause. But where do they fit on our scale? And just what constitute a truly fair term in this regard? I'm not sure.
The AutoCad term, saying that "upon reasonable notice" they have the right to inspect your premises, is pretty close to what you'll see in most EULAs. But what does reasonable notice mean? How often can they demand an audit, and is it fair for them to do so if they have no particular reason to suspect you of not being in compliance? And what's this about conducting the audit electronically?
The Photoshop term certainly seems more reasonable. I like the fact it only applies to organizations and not individual consumers, and it's certainly preferable not to have the immediate threat of them showing up at your door. But we shouldn't forget the example that SCO has set with its threatening letters to hundreds of corporations and its lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler. In the wrong hands, we know even an audit term like this one can be abused.
One other thing that colors my thinking about these two particular products is that they both have product activation (or at least Photoshop CS for Windows does). Having decided to use copy protection to enforce license compliance, aren't both companies guilty of at least a bit of overkill with these audit terms?
My Scoring
I deducted one point from Autodesk's score and left Adobe's unchanged. But, as you can tell, it wouldn't be hard to persuade me to score this differently in several different directions.
Total for Audit Clauses:
Autodesk AutoCad 2005: Minus 1 point
Adobe Photoshop CS: Zero points
