Would You Install Pirated Software at Work? 848
An anonymous reader asks: "I am an IT professional, and due to budget constraints, I have been told to install multiple copies of MS Office, despite offering to install OpenOffice, and other OpenSource Office products. Even though most of the uses are for people using Excel like a database, or formatting of text in cells, other programs are not tolerated. I have been over ruled by our controller, to my disagreement. I would never turn them in, but I am in tough place by knowing doing something illegal. I want to keep my job, but disagree with some of the decision making on this issue. Other than drafting a letter to the owners of the company on how I disagree with the policy, what else can I do?"
Just watch your back (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest you document everything, off site and get your CV circulated immediately.
Ask Slashdot: How do I act on principle? (Score:5, Insightful)
Answer, you have a choice: Grow some balls or a spine. Really, either will do.
Blow the whistle or quit (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is the lesser of two evils? (Score:4, Insightful)
To me, the decision is clear-cut.
Professional (Score:5, Insightful)
Any actual profession... and as much as IT/programming may claim to be one, it isn't really one yet... has a code of conduct that says quite clearly what you need to do. You can't be a professional and knowingly support illegal activity.
Understand your situation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone else will swear that YOU were the loose cannon. That they would NEVER violate a copyright. That they are 100% honest.
Really. They're already asking you to violate your ethics / principles. Why would you believe that they wouldn't lie about who's idea it was?
You do know you'll be the fall guy, right? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, there is *NO WAY IN HELL* I would do it. Nor would I work for a company that was irresponsible enough to even ASK me to. Sounds like you've picked a pretty shady and unstable company to work for. If I were you, I would stall on the installation ("We're having some technical issues with some of the machines, sir") and start looking for a new job. DO NOT install it if you plan on doing this (they would still blame you after-the-fact).
I've been down this road (Score:5, Insightful)
Knowing what these people are like, and having little confidence in their ordering of the licenses I put my foot down and refused to install it until the licenses arrived, I made the point that if this caused a problem for their course that they should perhaps consider not leaving things until the last minute in future. My line manager backed me up in my stance however my boss over-ruled both of us and told us to install it, standing my ground I defied him and refused to do so. Eventually my boss installed the software himself, so the course ran and so forth but at least I hadn't been the one to break the law, the best part? Those licenses never arrived, the whole thing was completely illegal, frankly I fail to believe the licenses were ever really ordered.
You shouldn't worry about losing your job by refusing to do this, they'll most likely back down on any threat to sack you. If they do however follow through then you're looking at an extremely strong court case involving a massive payout for yourself. If you get sacked and know they have gone ahead installing illegal copies, your first stop should be to report them to whatever country deals with anti-piracy raids, when you report it ask that any evidence of infringement they find be made available to your court case, this will make your case pretty much un-loseable. Just bear in mind that you absolutely do not have to do this, you're entirely in the right by refusing to do so and the law will recognise that.
One other thing to note is that if you do follow through, obey your orders and install the software - what happens if someone else reports your company? Can you really be sure they'll take the blame? What are you going to do if they say they had no knowledge of pirate software on your systems and hence the blame gets shifted entirely on you.
I think most people pirate at least some software and home, and so some may say it's hypocritical to say the things I've said here knowing that, but there's a distinction to be made between what you do at home and being professional at work. No one has to know what you get upto at home, and so the risk is more controlled, however at work any number of your users could cash in on that $1000 software piracy report reward or whatever. Furthermore, I'd imagine the penalties for what would probably be commercial copyright infringement would be much more harsh than for home copying also.
Just don't do it (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, I'm speaking from a little bit of experience here, so keep a stiff upper lip and don't give in to your boss.
Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:4, Insightful)
how are they going to behave should this come to the attention of FAST (or other enforcement body)?
Why bother to find out?
Tell them that you are going to Install Open Office or quit. It's not that what they have asked is morally wrong, it's that it exposes YOU to danger for their benefit. Oh yeah, it's also stupid because better software exists and they have "standardized" on the worst. You offered your advice and they discarded it, so it's time to go unless you want to be an bag man.
By the way, the anonymous reader has already reported them. ISPs already co-operate with media companies and monitors traffic. The chances are they have monitored the post. But it won't matter because someone there will fink sooner or later.
Re:Professional (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you want to keep the job so badly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me again why you are so attached to this job?
Re:Just watch your back (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the only sensible course of action here, but I would add: do NOT do something illegal on behalf of your employer, ever, even if means quitting on the spot. No job is worth the hit you will personally take when it comes out. "I was just following orders" doesn't cut much ice with the military when lives are on the line, and will cut absolutely none if you knowingly broke the law just to make money for your employer. The fact that you documented knowingly breaking the law is going to be worth nothing in court, either.
I must be the only one... (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess I must be the only one who ever worked for an unscrupulous employer who reads Slashdot, but the bulk of the replies here amaze me! There are certain things I'd quit my job over, some that would just keep me up at night, and some I'd do out of hand knowing that it was my only choice. Sure, if they insisted I sacrifice a virgin on some pagan alter, I'd bail immediately. Or if they wanted me to set them up a kiddie-porn site for their personal collections. Or if they voted Democrat (just kidding...) But software piracy isn't one of those 'quit immediately' type of things for me. Sure it's a 'polish your resume' event, but that's about it.
I'm posting this AC because it doesn't reflect on my current employer and I have no desire to 'out' the previous one except where it suits me.
Re:Just watch your back (Score:5, Insightful)
BSA (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a bright spot, however. After they pay a few hundred thousand dollars to the BSA, they may be more willing to switch completely to open source software.
Re:Why do you want to keep the job so badly? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all of us live in a perfect fantasy land where we can just quit jobs that offend our ethics. The guy probably has a family to support. Having to take care of other people lessens your ability to stand on principle.
Re:Discuss it with Human Resources (Score:2, Insightful)
If they wanted you to kill somene as "part of the job"... would you?
Depends on the job [army.mil], doesn't it?
It still ultimately comes down to your moral and legal responsibility. But for most people, it doesn't take that much rationalizing to find a set of circumstances to justify any "obviously immoral" action.
Re:Tough call (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:4, Insightful)
I love to bash Microsoft as much as the next guy, probably more in fact, but when I'm looking for examples of great free software, OpenOffice usually isn't one of my first choices. It's slow, buggy and just as bloated as Office is -- if not more so. (AbiWord is better, but still not perfect
Re:No license, no install (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just watch your back (Score:5, Insightful)
It amazes me that execs in companies can be such thieving bastards, even in companies that themselves make software. If it was somehow necessary for you to quit, then I would 100% definitely report them to FAST if they went ahead anyway. In any case, it sounds like a pretty low-life employer, so your medium to long term plan should be to leave anyway.
Re:Professional (Score:3, Insightful)
It is unprofessional even if you have a political or moral reason for the decision. If you can't do a job within the confines of the law, either the job can't be done or the law should be changed. Looking the other way is, again, expedient, but ultimately works to everyone's detriment because the underlying problem never gets fixed.
Re:Why do you want to keep the job so badly? (Score:1, Insightful)
That's why I work for the mob.
Good to see that there are still people out there that understand.
Gotta go whack somebody now. See you later...
I guess what I wonder is (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Ask Slashdot: How do I act on principle? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Professional (Score:2, Insightful)
It sounds like this activity is already rampant. It is less clear if it can be pinned on you or not. Are those involved aware the licensing agreements are being violated? Are they aware of the fines for such things? Are they aware of the implications of getting caught (an IT professional could end a career, a business could go under)?
There are people who do not care. Some people would consider this the same situation as exceeding the speed limit by 5 miles per hour. Some feel that the prices are unreasonably high for the product and choose this as a mild practice of civil disobedience.
I do not want to sugar coat your situation, though. The IEEE regularly reports that a whistleblower is screwed. Despite all the laws and rules put into place to protect such a person, the career could end. The company may stop providing advancement and raises. The company may provide very negative references. The company may even engage in unlawful termination activity. All of this, however, is difficult to prove in court. The result would be large legal bills and no income. Read more about it:
The whistle-blower's dilemma
Kumagai, J.
Spectrum, IEEE
Volume 41, Issue 4, April 2004 Page(s): 53 - 55
Your most pragmatic approach may be to get a new job and report them to something like BSA later. That may sound like a case of sour grapes, but there are no perfect solutions.
Good luck with your choice: it is a matter of selecting imperfect solutions in an imperfect world.
PS: Your work computer belongs to the company. They may already be monitoring you. As a member of IT, you may be more aware of the monitoring than others. Keep it in mind, however, because secrecy and anonymity tend to be important in these matters.
Re:Thin Clients (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Which is the lesser of two slashdots? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the logic your mom used in that "If everyone else jumped off of a bridge, would you do it too?"
Just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right. Then again, just because it is law, that doesn't necessarily make it right either. The only thing that can be taken from your statement is that if the majority is breaking the law then the validity, justness or application of the law to modern times needs to be revisited.
Copyright laws are meant to protect the rights of the intellectual property rights holder. Not necessarily the creator of that intellectual property, hence the RIAA.
If a software company is charging what the market believes is too much for software then the market adjusts itself by offering a better solution at a better price. Hence OpenOffice.
The black market in illegally traded software cannot be held up as a moral barometer to the current market and trends. The black market exists to undermine the establishment and is not in the best interests of open commerce. It will always exist no matter how just the laws that govern the market are. In addition, many proponents of teh black market support the poor behavior in the name of open software sources and standards. Which, in itself, is a fallacy.
That said, pirating software is flat out illegal. License agreements are put in place to protect rights that everyone has the right to protect. What makes pirating software wrong is that you are violating that license agreement that is meant to protect the intellectual property owner's rights. If you violate the agreement, you violate the rights of the owner because you take away thier control of thier intelletual property. When you violate rights outlined by something like, say, the U.S. Constitution, you are depriving someone else of thier rights and freedoms. That is a civil crime and punishable by the justice system established in this country.
If you feel that the law is unjust because "everyone is doing it" then, violating the law is not going to change it. Petitioning your elected officials in Congress will...provided you can get enough of that supposed "majority" to sign a paper saying that the law needs to be revisited and then voted on. Then again, there is a such thing as organized defiance of a law but it doesn't really apply to software piracy. Mainly because you are using that pirated software to your benefit. There can most likely be a monetary value associated with that benefit. If you are profiting off of that benefit and hoooo boy are you in for a doozie of a lawsuit! See, if you are benefitting from someone else's work/property, it's really difficult to claim some sort of organized definance of an "unjust" law.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
To: [e-mail address of manager]
Bcc: [your personal e-mail address]
Subject: [Product] installations and license limitations
Body:
[name of manager],
I have reviewed our records and determined that we have x licenses for [product]. There are users that require this product, yet do not currently have it installed, and there are insufficient licenses to meet their needs. Unfortunately, we are not able proceed with installing more copies of this software until new licenses are purchased.
I am attaching the name of our local [product] vendor, as well as his/her direct number, so that you can obtain additional licensing. When the new licenses arrive, we will happy to proceed with the new installations.
Alternatively, we would be happy to install an available opensource alternative. There are a handful of products that might be more suitable in this environment, and we are willing to work with the users to ensure the right products for them.
We are not willing to put this company at risk of litigation or prosecution for software misuse.
Sincerely,
[You]
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just watch your back (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Very easy to sit there and say "just quit your job", isn't it?
Let me guess, the issue for you [slashdot.org] here is that they're not using open source as you'd like? What "better software" exists?
Re:Just watch your back (Score:3, Insightful)
but attempts to hold you liable for damages and/or foist the blame on you thereby destorying your reputation are very likely as part of a coverup.
Re:Blow the whistle or quit (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't speak any German, but doesn't that literally mean "Orders are orders"? Anyway, I don't believe in turning people in for property crimes given their vengeful nature on both sides of the law, and I wouldn't want to put myself in the line of fire, having to testify, have my personal things torn up, possibly losing my own computer at home even, for "discovery", etc. And even more so, I don't want to be labeled as a snitch. I would be completely untrustworthy in the future, and rightfully so. Don't do anything that can be traced back to you. Look for another job, and maybe don't use that particular employer as a reference. They might get caught, and something could lead back to you, even if they are outright lies. Our system has turned honesty into a liability. When dealing with the authorities, always do so anonymously.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would never in a million years expose myself to potential litigation over something like this without a notarized document from my manager protecting me from all blame, and from losing my job if someone comes a'knockin' to check up on licensing violations. Since I doubt anyone's manager has the power to make that deal (unless the manager is an owner), it's going to hit the legal department, and the legal department will probably have a fit, and the whole plan will fall in its ass in a hurry.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just watch your back (Score:1, Insightful)
You seemed to have missed the point somewhat. They are asking him to commit a crime. An employer can not ask you to do that, and fire you when you refuse. If they did, you would have the option of going to court and suing for wrongful termination, but its probably not worth the effort. So you are right in some respects, but you still have legal recourse in this situation.
If I were the poster, I would just do it, and stash away the relevent communications directing me to do so. Then I would begin looking for a new job where management is not a bunch of cheap bastards. If shit hits the fan, and they try to blame me, at least I documentation, and better yet, a new job.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'd get evidence I was ordered to do something, like an email, and then just do it. Then quietly start looking for another job. The idea that I'm going to just barge into the CTO's office, throw my badge in his face and walk off into the sunset is a little ridiculous.
Then again, you have to understand twitter has never had a job where he'd be exposed to something like this, so that complicates the validity of his advice. The only reason he jumped in here was to argue that OpenOffice is "better" than Microsoft Office. He calls it "evangelism".
oh please (Score:4, Insightful)
It is amazing how easy it is to tell someone else to quit their job. The majority of people telling this guy to quit have probably installed lots of pirated software in the past, and they probably have music that they didn't buy. Why should you be so offended when your manager asks you to do something that you've already done in your personal life many times?
It is kind of like if you are a mass murderer and go to prison, and your cell mate asks you to kill someone in a cell down the hall. Shouldn't be that offended that he asked, should you?
Anyway, what this company is asking him to do is wrong. No doubt. But I love the fact that everyone here is so incredibly offended and now has all these morales that they didn't have last week when they were posting bits about how they trade music files without guilt because even though the law says it is illegal, they don't recognize the law as being valid.
Well, this is SLASHDOT, after all.
Immediately Resign (Score:3, Insightful)
Resign, and make no bones about why.
Re:Just watch your back (Score:5, Insightful)
It is your responsibility to disobey illegal orders.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Very easy to sit there and say "just quit your job", isn't it?
I've quit more than one dishonest employer and don't regret it. They never pay their would be bag men well anyway.
Integrity (Score:4, Insightful)
And the reason for that answer is best summed up by one of my all-time favourite quotations (from, I think, Alan Simpson): "If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters".
Protect Yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is that you need to *first* make sure that you handle the situation calmly. If your boss backs down, it doesn't mean he isn't going to hold a grudge against you if you caused his pet project to fail.
Proving why you have been fired can be a tough thing to do if time is allowed to pass. You need to evaluate if you can work with this individual in the future. If he is the type to hold grudges, start looking for another job, even if he seems to calm down. A boss who is willing to order you to break laws will see nothing wrong with trumping up means to decrease your performance ratings even if he doesn't fire you or target you for the next layoff. Moral high-ground isn't very comforting if you are sacked and not prepared for it.
If any boss gave me an illegal order, I'd instantly consider getting a new job. Even if you aren't fired, you may find yourself laid off after someone sues your company for similar actions.
Don't expect the legal system to protect you without preparation. If a boss calls you into his office and gives you an illegal order that you refuse, it will be very difficult to prove he ever gave the order if that boss denies it. Your word against his and all that. At that point, you are a potentially marked man, without recourse until you take some action to strengthen your position.
If the boss does manage to give you the order without any other witnesses, your first step is to go to his boss, with a co-worker and report that order was given. He needs to know about his underling, and you want the co-worker there to make sure that it is clear that you immediately went to him about it. It also prevents that person from covering your boss and his own backend, should he also be the unscrupulous type.
Be professional about it, though. I have had some bosses who were generally not bad people, but wanted to get the job done. If you can phrase your refusal in a way that is not indignant, but still a firm, "no", then you will be better off. He may realize he's been a jerk, but rubbing it in his face is a bad idea, unless you plan on leaving your job soon anyway.
Re:Just watch your back (Score:4, Insightful)
Talk to the Legal department or the company's counsel. The senior execs will probably never listen to you (mine never have), but they might listen to someone else in management.
I would suggest Legal department/counsel, if your company has one, is where you should be going if you are concerned with legal ramifications -- that's their job, they are the ones paid to determine what is and isn't the best legal way to proceed.
Installing multiple copies of Office is not illegal, but copyright infringment is, and it's up to the lawyers to sort out what can and cannot be done, to minimize liability.
And they may know things you don't know, like special super-secret deals the company may have signed out with software vendors, that you're not privvy to or allowed to know about.
If the lawyers who specialize in the law and representing the company say it's OK and sign their name to it, then you have to take their word on the matter, even if you personally disagree -- it's their a** on the line, not yours.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
This serves to put the decision maker on clear notice, and forms the basis for you legitimate refusal if it comes to that.
Either way this comes out, update your CV and get it launched.
Re:Just watch your back (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:email won't save the job. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, as if THAT isn't a career limiting move. Everyone LOVES a snitch.
First you email them. Maybe you'll even get a noteworthy response you can then keep for a while.
Seriously, don't snitch as a first resort, use it as a last resort - hell even make an HR issue out of it.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:email won't save the job. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ethics is further down the list of things to be true to than survival. Especially since we're talking about something as abstract as violating a copyright. No babies are being eaten, and no Nazis are riding dinosaurs. Choosing to to honor IP laws that are themselves ethically questionable over one's own survival is not something I expect anyone to do, regardless of the law. Maybe he has kids to feed. Maybe he lives paycheck to paycheck. There are a lot of reasons he might not be able to just quit.
I think anyone who's ever gone to bed hungry would totally appreciate that.
Piracy for profit is way wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to add to this that I find the moral implications to be of a different order altogether. It's one thing to violate copyright privately, quite another to do so in order to make a profit.
Moreover, companies are granted special protections and rights by the government. To balance this, they are expected to compete in the market. They must follow consistent rules in order for that competition to be (remotely) fair. Even if the law is broken and wrong (as I believe copyright is), that is not a sufficient justification for a business to take it upon itself to play fast and loose with the law. (Other justifications - such as important political or cultural speech, lifesaving treatment, artistic merit, or the ridiculously untenable position Digg just found itself in - may have merit. Profit does not.)
I know many small developers and web designers pirate their tools. I don't feel comfortable judging them; neither do I think it's my job to police big companies who can afford to pay but cheat anyway. But for myself, as a professional software developer (and no fan of Microsoft) I have spent thousands of dollars on Microsoft tools. I knew that I would not be comfortable with my actions, or feel my criticism of copyright to be wholly legitimate, if I did otherwise.
Now I develop free software, because that's what I believe in. The high cost of proprietary software only reinforces the advantages of the open model. When companies play by the rules, free and open source software wins.
Re:oh please (Score:1, Insightful)
And as for the morally flexible people who commit copyright infringement, there's a big difference between breaking civil law and asking someone else to break civil law, both in the law's eyes and it terms of morals.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even better, cc your vendor and include a line like "I've included John from {insert vendor's name} whom you can contact to purchase additional licenses" (you might also want to touch it up a bit to make it sound like you suspect your boss innocently did not realize the licensing issues). That will essentially force them to abide by your decision, and if they accuse you of snitching on them you can claim you were just trying to make it easier for them to purchase the additional licenses. Plus the vendor may offer a discount to keep you from going down the open source road and you would get the credit for finding it.
And worst case scenario, if you ever do need a new job, you have a new contact at your vendor who would certainly give you a good recommendation.
Re:Which is the lesser of two slashdots? (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Assume the majority will do something wrong/stupid
2. Assume that you will do what's right/smart
3. Force the conclusion that you would act differently than the majority
Except of course, that you put the conclusion in the assumption. What if they're exactly like you, then they would never do anything wrong/stupid either and you'd always be in agreement, and always do the right/smart thing. I certainly don't see people jumping off bridges, maybe there's a reason for that? I never thought that mom's logic worked on anyone past elementary school.Is a bunch of people smoking pot (I don't mean in a protest march) organizaed defiance? Hell no, most people smoke it for their own pleasure and couldn't care less about making any sort of "stand". But mass individual disobedience of the law is a real protest, it is sending a mesage that "this law isn't worth respecting" even if they're not taking to the streets.
Finally, I think there's one thing that's not taken properly into account. What does it take to enforce the law? What's the price of freedom that we pay? I don't think anyone will argue that they're for terrorists. But I think most will argue against some 1984ish state where the state sees everything, car tracking, credit card tracking, random search and seizures at home and in public, random opening of letters, general wiretapping even though I'm sure it could somehow be used to catch terrorists. I'm sure digicams are a boon to child porn producers. But if you ask people if they'd rather all their pictures were encrypted on camera and had to be presented to a government board for legality first before release, they wouldn't even though it'd probably help fight it.
Yes, I do see a value in copyright as the founding fathers did. But I also see that to protect copyright in todays digital society where massive and exact reproduction can happen in every home, you need to cripple everything. You need to cripple computers, you need to cripple the Internet, you need to cripple media through taxes, you need to cripple innovation in communication, you need to restrain free speech regarding DRM implementations and so on. That hampers the progress of science and the useful arts rather than promote it, and you don't get a fair picture without taking it into account.
Let's say there a million songs made because of copyright, that a million each listened to at 10$/album. If we abolished it, and there was a hundred thousand songs (idealists, promos, sponsored, subsidized, whatever) but a hundred million listened to it for free, which is really the greater benefit? People have been painters, singers, dancers and storytellers far longer than there has been photocopiers, phonographs, films and books. We haven't seen much because they were performing arts or unique works, but if we could have preserved it, replicated it and shared it we'd have in abundance. There's this great illusion that the world would become a cultural wasteland without the big industry, which just isn't true. So again - how much are they helping, how much are they hurting and is it *worth* it? I don't think the answer is that clear cut.
Re:Use the force Luke... (Score:3, Insightful)
What are you, like, 16 and you just got off your shift at Fry's? [smc.edu] You might get away with this a couple times, but as soon as you get caught--and you will, installing MS Office is not a skill on a par with being a doctor or a lawyer, or even high-end janitorial work--you'll look really, really bad, and you'll be the first person they layoff when your bosses need to trim expenses. Comic Book Store Guy and Nick the Computer Guy are funny on TV, but they're funny precisely because no one wants to work with someone like that.
Re:email won't save the job. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't make this about open source! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Just watch your back (Score:5, Insightful)
Ditto. An old boss of mine was a bit of a bully, and one day he called me into a private meeting and asked me to break into an ex-employee's server to see if they'd copied any of our code (it was actually quite likely). I told him point blank that I wouldn't be doing it and suggested he talk to a solicitor about the suspected copyright infringement. His response? "Oh. Um, okay." It's the quickest I ever saw him back down on anything by miles.
The thing is, they already know they are in the wrong and are sticking their neck out by asking you to do it. It would take a real psychopath to attempt to force you into it after you refuse. Normal people, even nightmare bosses, are going to back down immediately.
Re:Why do you want to keep the job so badly? (Score:3, Insightful)
He said he wanted to keep the job. I asked why he was so attached.
I think it's a perfectly valid question. It's not like there aren't other jobs out there.
Again, no one said he had to leave before he had something else lined up, so relax my friend.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, I know you value your paycheck, but LEAVE. It sounds like your company has serious ethical deficiencies that border on criminality. Based on the fact that they're asking you to do something illegal and refuse to listen to the voice of reason-- especially in light of the fact that they told you you'd be out on your ass for bringing this up in a traceable forum-- you really need to remove yourself from such a toxic work environment. The stress of having to find another job pales in comparison to the stress of being the fall guy when their scheme is discovered.
Do what's best for YOU and get out!
Re:Ignore the law. Support your employer. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Never, never, never. Don't do this. Bad idea. CC the HR person only. Keep it internal. Don't snitch like this, it is not your business to do that, and it can (rightfully so) make you entirely unemployable. Go the HR way and sue their asses if they fire you.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and that evidence would be cool reading for him in jail. He is responsible for his actions no matter what. It would be idiotic to do this when he can stick to his guns, bring in the HR responsible, document that he is sticking to his guns, and sue them if they fire him for it.
BTW, if they do not have an HR person, he should make a simple question in the next meeting with his manager (assuming he at this stage has documented everything): "Can I please speak with the company lawyer about this?"
When he utters that question, one out of two things will happen, they'll even back off or they will fire him on the spot. Either or he is better off.
Re:email won't save the job. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you break the law, you break the law, and you take responsibility. It doesn't matter if someone "ordered" you to break the law. You see, you can't be ordered by anyone to break the law no matter what, if they did your responsibility was to completely ignore them.
The one thing to remember is that the following is illegal for a company (1) to order an employee to break the law and (2) to fire someone for refusing to break the law. A company will normally get punished hard for firing someone for refusing to break the law.
If the original poster sticks to his guns and still experiences significant pressure over this issue after refusing, he should seek proper legal counsel. If he is fired and he lives in the US, he could end up with a decent settlement.
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:2, Insightful)
Looks Like You Dont Work in Corp America (Score:5, Insightful)
That is pure BS!! (Score:4, Insightful)
If what you're saying is true then a career as a Hitman or mercenary would be a perfectly legitimate career. One could order and carry out assassinations with impunity.
An contract to commit an illegal act is not valid a contract. That is why contracts to kill cannot be enforced and legitimate hit agencies do not exist. The argument that you were simply holding up your end of the deal (even if it is through a limit liability corporation) is not a defense in court. Similarly, if you are ordered to do something illegal you cannot argue that you were obliged to do it unless the company threatened you or your family with physical harm.
Re:Just watch your back (Score:3, Insightful)
If they get somebody else to do it, fine - not your problem. If they punish you for not doing it (i.e. letting you go), sue them for punishing you for refusing to obey an illegal demand. They will rather settle, than go in front of a jury AND risk attracting unwanted attention from BSA and the likes.
Re:email won't save the job. (Score:2, Insightful)
They exist?
Re:Stick to your guns and quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
It already involves external parties if you are in the process of purchasing software licenses (the original ones that are to be copied).
Wrong. Whether you observe the terms of the software licenses is not ultimately the responsibility of the vendor. The only possible reason for CCing the vendor is to try to force the manager into doing the right thing, and this isn't the way to do that. All the manager has to do is claim that is was all just a misunderstanding that could have been easily resolved, but you've totally screwed any possibility of meaningful sales negotiation with the vendor because they now have inside info. They can easily then sack you with justification.
Re:Looks Like You Dont Work in Corp America (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Just watch your back (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just watch your back (Score:2, Insightful)
Why did you criticize his actions but, from your wealth of superior knowledge, refuse to offer the correct procedure for this person to follow?