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Trade An MP3, Lose Your Job
woggo writes "I just noticed in
Infoworld
that certain companies are
firing their employees
for using MP3s on office computers. That's right, firing, without notice or prior warning. 'Acceptable use,' indeed."
What's the policy at your company?
Why the are people stuck on 'MP3'? Would I not get fired if it was an illegal Ogg Vorbis file? Would I get fired if it was a legal MP3 file? Illegal Music is the way to say it, not MP3. MP3 is just a file format.
</rant>
At roughly 5mb per standard song length (~3 minutes) I'm not suprised they were ask to clear their desks out. At a small company having a number of people sending music files out to a list of friends could cause a bit of a jam.
As for without warning.... I don't know about anyone else, but I remember reading the stack of papers I was asked to sign when I got my present job. Most of them were just that "warnings".
But as with many stories all we have are 2 sentences to form an opinion on what happened... not much to go on.
Malk-a-mite
============
I guess standard rules apply,
Wear a helmet and cover your @$$
=============
Many people I work with bring either personal CDs, or a radio. So long as they listen with headphones, we can contact them when we need to, and they get the work done the company doesn't care.
Now if there were illegal (I didn't read the artical) or tieing up bandwidth they have grounds. However if they have a under utilized machine on their desktop what does the company care if they use it for music?
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The "article" is one piece in a rumour column. It starts with the proposition that one firm has implemented a change to its acceptable use policy regarding MP3s. Fair enough - bandwidth costs money, and a certain amount can slip through in the margin a business needs over and above normal usage. 5mb chunks going out tends to cause the lights to dim (as does a lawyer stomping down there and ranting at the IT manager for wasting everyone's time with the effing GoodTimes or Wobbler or whatever it's called now virus hoax, but that's another story).
It then goes on to say that five employees got sacked without warning or reprimand or like that there.
That, frankly, I don't believe. Try that in the UK and you'd be paying four or five figure damages within a few months. Even in the US, firmly under the heel of capital, I misdoubt workers have that little right to a fair hearing.
That said, I work in a firm with the email kit set up so everyone can read everyone else's. Convenient if you need to know what client said what when to who when one of the whos is out at court, but a royal pain when you're after trading filthy limericks with said client.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
I really don't find this unreasonable.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Apparently Micro$oft will fire on the spot any employee caught trading MP3's, period. No buts. (from Micoshaft employee)
This
I'm guessing that for most companies the simple solution would be to REMOVE THE SOUND CARD. No Sound Card = no MP3 playback.
Of course I would never work for such a company but then I see it as their right to lose their employees to other companies that are more sensitive to people needs.
-gregg
BTW: I quit my job last month for similar reasons. Not because of MP3s but because the company wanted slaves not people.
Or at least, a need for a soundcard in every computer.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
As has been mentioned above, "misuse of company resources" is an easy thing to fire people on, because everyone does it in some way or another.
So, this leaves other general misdeeds/corporate political maneuverings to shoulder the blame.
Quite truthfully, such a place is somewhere I'd rather not work in.
--Perianwyr Stormcrow
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I thought about this a few months back when I needed to replace the 50 disc changer I had at work; Most of my CD's were already sampled to MP3, so just snagging the lot of them off my home PC would have been easy. But one of our TS drones had been fired for excessive bandwidth abuse and subsequent copyright infringement. (He was downloading 'Warez' from work)
First, I'd have had to install a sound device, then I'd eat most of the 10G hard disc with MP3's.
Not to mention circumventing the Admin account to install said drivers and a copy of Winamp. Plus the 'You've got six gigs of MP3 files? Are they all legal?' question. While they're all legal, I'd be hard pressed to prove I bought each and every album.
I said 'screw it, I'll stay away from using ANYTHING company owned;' They don't own it, they can't say a word about it.
So I grabbed a Micro AT 486 off the scrap heap, added memory and a DX4-120. Bought a pair of used 8.2G 14mm laptop hard drives and a used ISA SoundBlaster. I intentionally left Ethernet connectivity out; If I need to change files, it will be over my personal LAN and a PLIP cable. The box is only capable of playing MP3s. No network drivers, no services, no utilities, no login. (It runs a root shell and a script to choose the playlist, and enters init-6 when the script is terminated.)
If they have a bitch about it, I can tell them to get stuffed. If they touch it, I have good reason to get them reprimanded and or fired; Corporate policy is pretty strict about employee owned devices, and there is the added complication that they are incapable of even making their way around a shell! Any 'touchy-touchy' would do harm, and they don't like that liability.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I've worked for them twice, once as a regular employee, and once as a consultant, and never will again.
They have an office culture that (Here in the UK at least) stifles creativity, they have inflexable rules that seem set arbitarily, and quite frankly all the people I know that are still there are desperate to get out...
In CSC, if you succeed, CSC succeeds. If you make a mistake, YOU make the mistake.
I read this article with no surprise whatsoever.
When I were your age, all round here were fields...
Why? To fuck with them. Even if this didn't have a good chance in court, the publicity would be amazing, and other potential employees would certainly get the message that this company is a crappy place to work.
The "Don't let the boss find out" clause.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Joe Trader's sitting in his gopher hole, coding away, and gets the latest, reetest, bestest MP3 in the mail from his pal across the hall.
Joe fires up Napster, or Gnutella, or Scour, or whatever the latest, reetest, bestest flavour-of-the-month sharing package happens to be. Joe downloads a four-meg file. Hell, he's got plenty of bandwidth, so he downloads five or six of them.
Joe mails these files out. Some to his bud across the hall. Some to his bestest girl, working at the startup down the street. One goes to his mommy.
Joe has tied up company bandwidth, used e-mail for personal communications, and billed for time when he didn't actually work.
Where I come from, that's called "termination with cause." Do not pass go. Do not collect unemployment benefits.
Of course, I'm posting this from work...
--
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Reminds me that I need to borrow some DVD's from him soon.. :)
In a normal non-fascist office employees are generally allowed to hear some low-volume music while working. Some can bring a little radio on their desk. So what's the matter if they listen to some mp3 while working? Maybe this is why here in Italy we're known to be not so great workers :) but it seems to me an acceptable idea. Work should not be a total jail. Of course you can't spend 2 hours listening to music and doing nothing, or dancing instead of working. So it's not the MP3s itself, it should only be a matter of unauthorized bandwidth usage.
Similarly, if the system you're working on belongs to the company, they would have the right to tell you what you can and cannot put on it. It's their stuff, after all, though it would be a really, really jerkass thing for them to not let you put your own files on it.
Besides, I doubt the employees being fired simply for trading mp3's. They were probably in line to be terminated (for previous bandwidth abuses or pissing off the boss or whatever) and this provided an adequate excuse to do so.
--
Dyolf Knip
... they have what's called "at will" employment. This happened to me at SBC Communications last year. EVERYONE on my floor had MP3's, but my computer had the misfortune to get scanned, and viola! 4 days before christmas, I'm out of a job. WW is right above when he points out that this only happens at the most fascist companies, but they DO have the best benifits. Standard offer at Bell was 43k for a entry level 1st level mgr with other compensation that brings the value of the package (which I have a copy of, as my wife was made just this offer in the same department) to about 61k for the first year - a package that most other companies (think small to medium) have a hard time matching.
So, people WANT to work there because the pay is good, the opportunities are excellent, the benifits are beyond par - but the security is draconian, the policies unclear and termination occurs without recourse.
Go read Dilbert. Scott Adams came up with Dilbert while working at PacBell, which is owned by SBC.
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
get your boss addicted to them and voila! you now have blackmail in-case he becomes a prick.
:-)
As for the computer department that ratted, what a bunch of hypocritical piss-heads... they're trading mp3's more than the girls in sales/billing. Besides, you cna control your users easily, if you are a sysadmin that has a clue (most don't, in particualr MCSE's
I also noticed that this was only piss-ant companies... nothing like DELL,ATT,SPRINT,IBM,etc... let the little crap companies abuse their employees, us creative companies will snatch them up happily!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is another reason why you should *carefully* (oh so carefully) read employment agreements before you sign them. If the company says no personal email over the network, it's their network - they can say what they will allow on their property, and what they will do if you ignore that rule. I know an acquaintance who recently stated they'd refuse to work for a company that prohibits ICQ and AIM, not even mentioning personal email. That's that person's choice as to what they feel they need in their workplace, and I wish them well - some people insist on windows in their office.
*If*:
a) the company gives you a piece of paper stating "Goofing off during work hours is grounds for termination with cause. Goofing off consists of:
* excessive (as defined by your supervisor) personal telephone calls
* personal email
* ICQ
* AIM
Other specific prohibitions that if violated are grounds for termination with cause include:
* installing software on company-issued software not specfically authorized by the IT department
* running security software such as SATAN or a portscanner without such action being part of your job definition,
* bringing personal computer hardware into the office and connecting such to the network without written approval by supervisor
Etc. etc...."
b) AND you then sign that piece of paper, tough for you: they told you in writing, you agreed to it, you signed it. You sign the employment contract, you're obliged to the terms of the contract as long as they do not violate the employment laws of your jurisdiction. You install ICQ, they can fire you for it. Some companies make adherence to dress codes as a high requirement, some make timeliness, some require other conditions. I'm not saying it's nice, or fair, or reasonable, but if you want that job, those are part of what you have to do for that job.
Yes, I've seen all of the above conditions on employment agreements I've been handed - I'm not making them up. My personal response to them is irrelevant. Read contracts before you sign. If you don't know what you're reading, get an expert's advice. If the company protests they won't allow you to consult with a lawyer, ask yourself why.