Email from Autodesk about License Compliance, is this legit?

[sjon313]

Hi all

we are a small architecture office in Greece, currently using Autocad LT with 5 active licences, purchased in December 2023. Today i received an email, supposedly from an Autodesk email account, informing me that I am in violation of Autodesk’s license terms. Apparently, Autodesk is accusing us of using pirated versions of their software, specifically Autocad 2016, 2020, and 2021, and we need to pay the ammount of 45.279,00 € + VAT within two weeks, or they will take legal action. They even sent a pdf file with the id of each pc (which actually matches the actual pc id's), and the period of usage for each version of the software. What is troubling me, after dealing with the initial shock, is that the person sending the email claims that he is from the Autodesk offices in Italy, however, I cannot find any information of it existing. Also, the email has been cc'd to some email addresses that seem to belong to "Antenna Group", a Greek media company, and after a few searches on google I cannot find any affiliation of it with Autodesk. I am posting the original email text bellow:

Dear ...,

My name is Bruno Federici, representative from the License Compliance Department of Autodesk.

Autodesk has identified that your organization is in violation of Autodesk’s license terms, specifically infringing on our copyrighted material. It is important to note that copyright infringement is illegal under intellectual property laws.

Autodesk takes the installation and/or use of non-compliant and/or pirated licenses very seriously. While we have no desire to resort to legal proceedings, Autodesk, as a technology company, is duty-bound to protect intellectual property rights.

Whenever there is non-compliance of any kind the way it is resolved amicably and commercially is, Autodesk take the value of a valid license for each non-compliant license. According to our records, the following license in your organization are being misused.

Product	Violation	N. of licenses	3 Years License Value	Total Value
AutoCAD	Pirated License	6	€ 5.805,00	34.830,00 €
Cost Recovery (30%)	10.449,00 €
Total	45.279,00 €

In order to maintain a close collaboration with our clients, Autodesk requests that the non-compliant client proceed with a commercial reconciliation by purchasing NEW LICENSES to rectify the non-compliance (violation of copyright and industrial property) and thus amicably close the non-compliance case internally.

To resolve this issue and ensure your account meets all requirements, you must purchase new subscription licenses for a minimum value of 45.279,00 € + VAT. You can purchase any product from our entire portfolio.

To resolve this issue and ensure your account remains in good standing and no further action is taken, Autodesk will expect this be rectified commercially by the way of new purchases in two weeks; by July 11th 2024

You can get more information in the FAQ’s or at www.autodesk.com/genuine.

If your company won’t find a reconciliation solution with the purchase of NEW subscriptions (Renewals won’t count) before the deadline, we will have to escalate the case to our legal firm in Greece.

Please let us know your preferred time for a discussion. We genuinely believe that finding a mutually beneficial resolution will uphold our license terms, respect copyright laws, and strengthen our business relationship.

Thank you for your cooperation, and we look forward to your prompt response.

Best Regards,

Bruno Federici
Software Management Group

License Compliance Consultant

DIRECT +39 0238592838

Autodesk Srl
Via Tortona 37/41
Milano 20144 IT

www.autodesk.it/genuine

Please, if anyone can provide any information about the subject, we would be incredibly grateful, as this came as a shock to us, and we have already contacted a couple of lawyers, but I'd rather know it's some kind of scam and move on, instead of trying to prove that we have not used pirated software.

Thanks in advance to anyone who replies. It will be much appreciated! 

Nick

[pendean · Accepted solution]

Yes, that is what those emails look like: you should be able to verify the identity of the Autodesk person emailing you through LINKEDIN too.

Start the conversation back to find out what your options are, there is a very very small chance they might be in error, but most often not, so do not ignore it at all.

EDIT:

https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?fetchDeterministicClustersOnly=true&heroEntityKey=urn%3... 

[TravisNave · Accepted solution]

This is legit.  

[oliverharris661]

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@TravisNave wrote:

This is legit.  

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Thanks, For help.

[jan_lassak1210]

How it rne? Did you pay everithing?

[jan_lassak1210]

Do you think that can be here solition to not pay everithing?

[mortlepp]

I agree. I don’t think Autodesk’s approach is fair. We are fully compliant and have no intention of violating licensing terms by using additional licenses without permission. As a small company, we simply can’t afford the extreme fines, especially for misunderstandings or minor oversights.

Sometimes staff might share a license, assuming it’s allowed because it works across both a desktop and a laptop, especially when they’re not using it all the time. I believe Autodesk should give companies more flexibility or clearer guidance, particularly for small businesses like ours.

Soon, as competing products become available, we’ll have other options—and won’t have to feel pressured by Autodesk’s rigid policies.

[Simon_Weel]

Soon, as competing products become available

Competing products are already there, like Bricsys products. Yet they don't seem to 'hurt' Autodesk....

[carlos.adameA2HTS]

could you resolve with autodesk compoliance?

[lianasal1]

Hello mr Nick, i have the same issue and received the same email from department of Italy. Could you please let me know how is this ended? It was a spam or you paid the fee at last? Thank you for your time. 

[nikos_metaxas]

I received a similar e-mail yesterday. Can you please tell me how you proceeded? Was it legit?

[lianasal1]

Hello, i have attached the email I have received yesterday from mrs Monica Mclean and in the 2nd email she was attached the pc and the serial number of non valid software. Yes it is legit and you can talk by phone or by email to find the better way with some subscription yearly at least, to close the case. For me the problem was the 3ds max software that it was nonvalid and in the email she has mentioned that I had to pay about 13.000€ + vat + 30% for 3 year subscription but when we talk at the phone, she was ok just to purchase the software for 1 year and unistall the cracked one so as to close the case. 

[jan_lassak1210]

Hello,
Yes it was legit. We had to contact autodesk.

S pozdravom / Best regards
Ing. Ján Laššák
+421 915 758 403