Copyright Law Protection for Employees?

Copyright Fringement asks: "I've been constantly asked by my employer to install software (Office, XP, etc) on unauthorized computers, as well as duplicate copyrighted material (video, CD's) en masse. I know that there are watchdog agencies that look out for this kind of stuff, and it's setting my employer (or me) up for serious fines and Other Bad Things(tm), but is there a way to protect myself from said Bad Things (tm)? I've explained till I'm blue in the face, but the bosses always: get a glazed look; or give some nonsense explanation. I like my job, but I'm not taking the fall for these guys. What's a self respecting Slashdot reader to do?"

Give them the invoice

[redog]

Buy the software and give them the bill.

Re:Report them!

[Col. Klink (retired)]

Or just print out that page and anonymously leave copies in common areas. After all, if you like your job, you don't want the company shut down or even disrupted.

not surprising

[teksno]

after this ask /., its not surprising we get stories like this: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/24/051 7229&tid=185&tid=98&tid=218 [slashdot.org]

how is the general public supposed to find copyright infringment wrong when companies are doing it, and your boss is telling you to do it...

Re:No protection for employees

[sudog]

If the employee doesn't know it's going on, the person responsible is the one in charge handing him the software and saying "Install this, it's authorised, bought and paid for."

No employee should expect to shoulder the burden of verifying that every single thing they do conforms to every possible law and is in fact legal when their bosses give orders and make false or misleading claims. It's an impossible expectation.

Re:No protection for employees

[It doesn't come easy]

I agree with you but copyright law doesn't. You can still be found guilty and the minimum fine is $200 per occurrence last I heard. However, I would also agree that a jury would probably feel the same as you in most circumstances and acquit (but this would be from a human standpoint, not from a point of law).

Re:Documentation

[mutterc]

I've pushed and pushed before to try to get orders in writing (or even email) (not because they were illegal, but because they were a Bad Idea).

I've never been successful. I do passive-aggressive resistance instead ("sure, I'll put that on my to-do list") - the bosses are too busy to keep badgering me about every little thing.

You have to refuse from the very first time.

[jonadab]

Once you've been talked into doing something once, precedent makes it *much* harder to say no thereafter. I had a former employer that asked me to falsify records, though it wasn't stated that way. It was, "You check to make sure that this thing is thus-and-such, and then you record it", but the first time I wrote down an accurate but unacceptable value, it became, "You CAN'T put THAT down!" I shrugged and said, "That's what it was." They had somebody else take the book and change it, a compromise I was willing to live with at the time. Anyway, my point is that because I refused the first time, it thereafter was easy to refuse subsequently, and before very long an understanding developed that I couldn't be asked to do that.

That is the position you want to take. It may not totally protect you if everyone in the whole company goes down in flames, but it CAN reasonably be expected to keep a target from being painted on your particular chest. (Well, a legal target anyway. Some bosses hold grudges, which could be a different kind of target, but if you think you have that kind of boss you probably should be looking for another job already anyway.) But if you did the thing the first time, you may have to take that position on your *next* job.