Software Piracy is theft. Pure and simple. We strongly resent our huge financial investment, our hard work and our livelihood being threatened!

Software piracy isn't clever and it certainly isn't funny. Those attempting it damage the industry that pays their salary. It undermines their colleagues' security and ultimately therefore, it damages themselves.

Leaving the employment of a company and taking copies of licenced software along with access codes is no different from forgetting to return the company car. Which is why professional Expert System software developers, like Mistral, invariably prosecute offenders and why Courts these days increasingly award heavy penalties upon conviction. In the form of substantial fines and even imprisonment for persistent offenders.

Mistral makes no apology for maintaining a robust, highly sophisticated software security system and which includes legal tracking systems. It does not fail. Abusers are caught and abusers are prosecuted. Often prosecuted as publicly as Mistral can do so.

Here is a short and simple list of prohibited actions to remind people how to stay out of trouble with the Law. Some might come as a surprise!

1) Do not download copies of software to pass on to other people. Not even to colleagues at work even when they are entitled to access. Insist they download the software for themselves. Mistral reserves its incontestable right to know who is accessing OUR intellectual property.

2) Do not pass copies of Access Registration Codes to other people. Firstly they won't work. Secondly Mistral can and will trace them.

3) Do not backdate the System Clock on a PC and then attempt to run licenced software after the licence expiry date. Doing so is stupid for so many more reasons than can be listed briefly here. Mainly though it won't work. Clever code spots it and blocks further PROGRAM access. PERMANENTLY! Even subsequently resetting the clock to the correct time will not reset the block and no further access to any Mistral software will be granted until the block is removed. Either by paying Mistral an agreed fee in advance or by formatting the Hard Drive and reinstalling the Operating System.

Do not falsify your answers to the brief but essential questions Mistral's asks on its download request forms. There are reasons for the questions and Mistral is legally entitled to ask them.
See:- Why does Mistral ask who I am? Is it legal to do so?

These measures may sound harsh. They are and they are intended to be so. They are there to protect not just the enormous investment continuously made in the software systems by the developers but also the investment made by legally licenced users.

Do always read the simple to follow instructions and stay out of trouble.

Click:- Computer Misuse Act 1990

Click:- Mistral Licence Agreement

Click:- Even simpler list of Do's & Don't's!

Click:-  Zero tolerance to abuse.

Mistral's commitment:
Bringing the benefits of computerisation to our industry - without the historically associated problems.