ActivePDF – Letter of Destruction / Audits

Introduction

This blog discusses ActivePDF software and their audit provision and letter of destruction licensing compliance practice.  If you received a letter from this company, or their legal representatives, contact us for a free initial discussion.  We are a leader in the United States in the area of software licensing compliance.

Letter of Destruction

ActivePDF is unique from all the other software publishers we deal with in our software audit defense practice in that they have a letter they want an officer and director to sign a “letter of destruction” attesting to the fact that the software has been deleted from the company servers, networks, laptops, and computers.  Here is a look at their letter:

LETTER OF DESTRUCTION/PRODUCT NOT IN USE

“This Letter of Destruction (LOD) is to be signed by an officer of your company or any other individual authorized to execute such agreements. ActivePDF shall accept a signed LOD as a guarantee that none of the products listed below are installed now or will be installed in the future without written permission from ActivePDF. You agree that any installation and/or use of the products listed below after the execution of this agreement will void this LOD and said usage shall be governed by the license agreement in place at the time of discovery by ActivePDF. Order No. Description Serial No. By signing this, [your company name] officers and personnel agree to discontinue use of ActivePDF software identified above and verify that these licenses are removed._”

____________________________________________________ Company Name & Address _____________________________________________________ Signature of Company Officer _____________________________________________________ Print Name of Company Officer _____________________________________________________ Title _____________________________________________________ Date

ActivePDF Software Licensing & Service Agreement Includes Audit Provision

Here is a look at their current EULA at the time this page was posted.  As you can see, you are agreeing to their audit provision.

14. AUDIT.

“In order to verify your compliance with this SLSA, ActivePDF in its sole discretion may request either or both of the following:

that you provide ActivePDF with a written certification describing the extent of your use of the Software, including consumed processing volume, and/or allow ActivePDF and/or its representatives to conduct a reasonable audit of your applicable records and premises.

You agree to comply with such request(s) and to provide ActivePDF with such assistance as may be reasonably requested by ActivePDF.  If, after any audit, discrepancies are discovered in use, counts or any other mechanism ActivePDF relies upon to determine your licensing, you agree to immediately purchase the requisite licensing.  Failure to do so will result in a termination of all rights granted under this SLSA with no refund or offset.”

Attorney Steve® Tip:  Note that this provision DOES NOT say they will release you of any copyright infringement liability if you are found to have been using unlicnesed software.  This is why it is important to consider retaining software legal defense counsel to try to mitigate risks of liability.

Other intellectual property terms

According to their website:

Copyrights

All content within ActivePDF.com, including all text, graphics, photographs, graphs, sounds, data, images, audio and video clips available on this website, is the property of ActivePDF, Inc. or its licensors or content suppliers, and is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. The compilation, collection, selection, arrangement, assembly, and coordination of all Content available on this web site is the exclusive property of ActivePDF, Inc. and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws.  All content available on this website may only be used by you as a shopping and information gathering resource. You may not copy, publish, distribute, create derivative works of, commercially exploit the content of this web site, or use this web site for any other purpose.

Contact our Intellectual property law firm

We are a boutique IP law firm focusing in the area of software audits and license compliance defense.  These cases are typically brought as copyright infringement cases (often threatening liability of $30,000 to $150,000).  In this area of law there is no substitute for experience.  Call us at (877) 276-5084.  We have extensive federal court experience (appeared in over 100 cases) and great client reviews (available upon request(.  In many cases involving software audits we can structure a low flat rate legal fee.

We also handle cases with the SIIA, Business Software Alliance, Microsoft, Adobe, Siemens, Autodesk, Vero, Solidworks and handle torrent defense (Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media) and font, jewelry, and photo infringement.)