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Share FIles? Get Fired.

Posted by Hemos on from the the-joys-of-correct-speak dept.

The_Other_Kelly writes "The Guardian is running an interesting story, 'File-share defender fired over TV show', where a news organisation, upon discovering that someone who spoke publicly elsewhere to defend p2p file sharing, was one of their employees, promptly fired him. "

2 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Interesting legal question by Sanity · · Score: 3, Interesting
    If the company was an abortion clinic and the opinion expressed by the employee was anti-abortion, then there would be no uproar if they were fired.
    If the employee had not allowed their opinion to affect their work performance, then I see no justification for firing them, and I strongly suspect that the law wouldn't either.
    He expressed anti copyright and IP views, while working for a firm that relies on copyright and IP.
    Ah, so you can only be fired if your boss happens to disagree with you. Right...

    My firm relies on copyright, and I am extremely critical of intellectual property law. I believe that many aspects of intellectual property law hurt my company.

    all companies insist on a probabtion period of at least a month to see if your face fits, with instant dismissal if you don't.
    Um, wrong, mine doesn't. Either way, having a probation period is not a license to fire someone for whatever reason you like.
    through to the Police in the UK at least not being allowed to express racist views even when not on duty.
    Ah, because criticising intellectual property law is just like expressing a racist view. Is this were you accuse me of being just like Hitler?
  2. Re:Interesting legal question by Dave114 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If the company was an abortion clinic and the opinion expressed by the employee was anti-abortion, then there would be no uproar if they were fired.


    If the employee had not allowed their opinion to affect their work performance, then I see no justification for firing them, and I strongly suspect that the law wouldn't either.


    Here's a story that erupted up in Canada some time back , regarding the cancellation of a hospital cleaning contract which seemed to result from the fact that one of the company's owners was opposed to abortion. In this case, the location being cleaned was not even that of an abortion clinic. (The story was in the major papers around here, but given that this happened probably at least a year ago now, those papers no longer have copies of their articles online and hence I've pulled something from another source - if you find a better article feel free to post it)