Slashdot Mirror
How P2P Can Taint a Career
duncan writes "After appearing on the BBC news review program Newsnight to discuss the recent Grokster case, Alex Hanff returned to work the next day and was promptly sacked because 'his presence within the company could count against it when bidding for big government contracts.'
Read more at The Guardian"
Build a website that catalogues all the evil shit corporations do to employees, so that consumers get to know about the evil shit and take their business elsewhere.
Call it something like, whodotheyfuckoverwiththemoneyyougivethem.com, only shorter, while making sure the word stealth appears nowhere within.)
It it catches on, then corporations would be afraid of how their treatment towards employees could count against the way consumers look at them.
Fight fire with fire.
now before you go writing me off as a troll please hear me out. i have pleaded. god knows i have tried. its seeming really hopeless..i don't know if i can take it anymore and i am hyperventilating. the dupes on slashdot are way out of hand. something needs to be done (via slashcode, moderation, SOMETHING FFS) to stop the dupes. this is really affecting me. please stop duping.
He didn't get fired for sharing anything. He got fired because he earlier run what seems to have been a BitTorrent tracker in his spare time, was sued over it (in a civil case, not a criminal case), and didn't tell his employer when they interviewed him, so they only found out when he talked about it on a TV show.
He argues that he didn't have to mention it since it doesn't have anything to do with his employer, and I think depending on how the interview went exactly, he's probably right. If they actually asked him about whether there were any civil cases pending against him and he lied and said no, then it's understandable that he got fired (it's not like it's a personal question, after all); but if they didn't, then I really think it's their own fault, and he's right in any case when he says that the whole thing simply doesn't affect his employer in any way.
In any case, it's important to note that he did not himself share any files. He got fired for going into dupe slashdot comments and stealing the +5 moderations.
Whether you stand up to a bully and end up in a fist fight ... whether you challenge your employer's unethical practices ... whether you oppose your government's war mongering ... whatever you do to challenge the authority OF anyone higher up in the food chain- doesn't matter if it was legal , ethical or moral on your part.
You can get fired for anything that anybody can use to attack you and your companies' reputation. It's sad, but true - but at least I hope this guy will get a better job at a more appreciative employer.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
To what extent can an opinion about intellectual property (or any other law) form grounds for dismissal?
IMHO it is the right, indeed the obligation of anyone living in a democracy to question the laws that govern them. Intellectual property laws are increasingly valid targets for such scepticism.
There would be an uproar in most countries if someone was fired for expressing their opinion on abortion, or religion, why should someone's opinion on dupe law be any different?
This really has nothing to do with P2P other than that was the subject on which the guy was speaking. What got him let go was his announcement (on national TV) that he is against copyright and intellectual property. From the Gruaniad article:
Mr Hanff has declared that he is opposed to copyright and intellectual property laws. Since much of our business is based around the protection of our copyright and intellectual property, we consider our dismissal of Mr Hanff entirely justified and appropriate.
I work for a telecoms company. If I went on national TV and decried telephony, saying that everyone should communicate face to face or by writing letters, I'd expect my company to start to wonder if I was entirely suitable as an employee, too.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This is one of the very sad issues with today's corprate atmosphere. People have been laid off, fired, etc. just because they got bad press. The corprate string-pullers of the company echelon don't like the fact that an employee of theirs got some sort of bad attention from the newspapers, and so they lay them off as a "liability", even if they are in reality a model hard working, smart employee. This kind of "liability" crap is just sick.
I hope he wins a nice settlement once it go's through arbitration and he wins an unfair dismissal case. (If he does that is).
Shh.
If he's employed in a "right to work" state, then the employer can fire him for any reason or no reason. On the flip side the employee can leave the company anytime for any reason or no reason.
1. He's not in the US, he is in Britain, where if you had RTFAd, you would know that they do have such a law.
2. You are talking completely out of your ass. A "right to work" state has nothing to do with the ability of an employer to fire employees. It refers to the particular state's laws regulating collective bargaining agreements. If a state outlaws agreements that require workers to be members of a union, then it is a "right-to-work state". It simply means that you have a right to work regardless of your membership in a union.
Well, since "right to work state" is a US concept and Mr. Hanff is in the UK, this is a rather bogus argument.
For the sake of discussion though, you are in fact wrong. There's this little thing called Title VII that rather blows away your "any reason or no reason" argument.
The
Are we really going to stand for a society where to express any kind of opinion that runs contrary to the norm (corporate line) results in rejection and sacking? The end result will be a society where people report each other for holding non-conformist opinions as a way of getting promotion.
I'm not surprised. Companies these days want you to focus on the job to the point of excluding any kind of social life that might interfere with your commitment to work. If you put yourself in position where your views are publicly available, it will be used against you. It wouldn't surprised me if I get fired for my comments on /. one of these days.
I'm sure Britain doesn't have the concept of "at will" employment, or the concept that if the guy was self-employed, "freedom of contract" -- but it seems clear, they don't owe him a job.
The guy got fired because he's on record making hostile statements about intellectual property. A company that lives and dies by I.P. has a good reason to not want the potential troublemaker.
E.g. suppose I work for a AIDS activist organization, doing some programming. But I'm on record as saying, "AIDS is God's way of punishing sodomites." If that got around, I figure I'd be out of some work.
Put yourself in the shoes of management. Try to imagine having to keep on working with someone who says, "I hate you and all that you stand for." If you were a manager, you'd probably feel really frustrated if you couldn't fire him.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Not necessarily true. This is the sort of logic that in the 19th century was used to fire people after they were disabled, say working in a factory, or in mines and was used to create "yellow dog" contracts, or contracts that binded employees to not join unions. Thankfully the government has intervened and banned such unfair employment practices. Therefore, your statement is not completely acceptable even in a capitalist country like the USA.
In the UK any employee who has been in their role for less than 13 weeks has zero protection.
The mistake here, if there was one, was the employer giving a reason for dismissing the employee... they should have just thanked him for his time and sent him on his way.
There are apparently laws against firing people for political and philosphoical beliefs, yes.
However, he's not been fired for something as trivial as saying "I'm a Tory" or "I think people should be free to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes as long as no-one is hurt (at least non-consentually)".
He's gone on national TV and said in effect "copyright and IPR are wrong and should be abolished", while working for a company that relies on those things to make money. That sets him as being opposed to the way in which his employer does business.
It may be a philosophical belief, but it does tend to suggest that he may not be suited to working with his current employer. It's not like his Labour boss has fired him for being a Tory, or prudish boss fired him for being permissive.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
When calling people moron you might want to not make up words like "noone". But I guess name calling and misspellings are easier than actually having a reasoned argument.
The Farewell Tour II
He is a fool and obviously thinks he can say what he wants and still rake in the cash from companies, you can't!. If you want the cash you gotta play the game.
So, you're saying that just because an employee murdered someone you'd fire him? Just like that? Where's the loyalty these days?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
can be downloaded here via bittorrent. I think the overall question is whether or not a person can be fired over a philosophical view.
He never said that he is going to pirate software or will help those who do (he removed the torrent tracker from his site in December). However he was served with lawsuit via the MPAA in March. He is going to fight the lawsuit in court. He is fighting the lawsuit on jurisdiction grounds, that the MPAA has no right to sue him. Even though the server was temporarily hosted in California.
Anyway I think his point is that the MPAA is using gestapo tactics in scaring people to settle and he is not going to settle. He'd rather fight this in court. Anyway he does have a case in light of the recent ruling since it only applies to those who promote the trading of illegal material. I think removing the tracker in December is the appropriate action.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
In other news...
...Oh no wait, the other news is actually the same.
Sigh.
Not as bogus as your response. As far as I know, "filesharing supporters" are not a protected civil rights group.
At-will employee's can be fired for ANY reason besides Age, Race, Gender, Religion, or National Origin. Your interjection here was entirely irrelevant to the topic (and yet, +5 informative). Brilliant.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
Most comments (until now) focus on Guardian's article "File-share defender fired over TV show". However there is another issue here; Mr. Hanff was also funding a torrent site.
Therefore, is not only a matter of opinion but also a matter of action. Considering that Mr. Hanff declared himself to own nothing more than "a few guitars [...] and an old inkjet printer", one can conclude that part of his salary was going to the maintenance of the torrent site.
Take into account that his former employer is not dealing with end users but with companies (they are making database software solutions) -- they really don't want any cloud of unprofessionalism shade their contracts. It is extremely unfortunate for such a man to be fired (considering his statements, one can be pretty sure that he is a good person) -- but I really can't blame his company for firing him.
I have an idea - how about a post on how the horrific spelling on slashdot can harm a career?
Seriously, the spelling and grammar on this thread is either indicative of how riled up people are about this topic OR it is a sign of how slashdot use can seriously harm your brain...
It's IDEOLOGY, not 'idiology' people - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideology
Perhaps they meant 'idiot-ology'...a common ailment of slashdot users...
Ugh...it's amazing how mad people can get while flaming others on a forum while making themselves look like complete idiots...
Gekido's Lair
You can get (and people have been) fired for doing things on your own time that the company doesn't like.
You can get (and people, like this guy, have been) fired for saying things on your own time that your company doesn't like.
Notice a common theme here? The common theme is that if you work for a company, that company owns you. You are their slave. In exchange for an ever decreasing amount of money for your time, you have to do everything they tell you and demonstrate that you believe everything they want you to believe.
And the government that keeps telling you that it's there to protect your personal liberty? It's nowhere to be found, because it's controlled by the very same people who control the corporations that you are increasingly a slave to.
Welcome to the 21st century. Enjoy the ride to the bottom. Soon enough, you won't be allowed to enjoy anything else.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
At least the bloke has some legal redress to allow the courts to assess unfair dismissal claims. Here in AUstralia we have that right at the moment but our Federal gov't is about to try and take it away completely for anyone employed by a small business (defined as a business with 100 employees!!.
Of course they're not allowed to SAY they're sacking you because of your religion, race, etc...but then again they don't have to give ANY reason...
19th Century Free Market ideology is being re-adopted at the cost of our freedoms
How about if i'm just buying a new TV and want to weight in my choice the environmental track record of the manufacturer?
Or am buying clothing and want to know if the manufacturer uses child labour?
Or am buying financial services and want to know how does that company treat it's employees?
When sitting on the store one rarelly has internet access or the time to trail through the information even if said access is available.
It's self-deception to expect most people to take notebooks with mobile internet access to the electronics shop in order to make an informed decision on which TV to buy.
My sugestion is as follows:
- Setup an "informed choices" service. This should serve as an intermediary between consumers and third party entities (consumer groups, NGOs, government, business groups, whatever) willing to provide information about products and companies
- The service is customiseable per-person. You can log in via de internet and choose what factors do you care about and how much do u trust the information coming from each of the third party entities
- The service should support a simple and easy way of letting consumers get the right info when they're out shopping. For example using a mobile phone with a bar code reader (or maybe using the phone camera for that) or an RFID reader and a mobile connection to said service allowing to simply: press a button; point mobile at product; get the info u care about; choose.
The point here is two-fold:
- Give enough information to the consumers to let them do informed decisions but not so much that they need to spend lots of time just getting informed. (otherwise ppl will simply not do/use it). Hence the whole user configured filtering and trust weighting.
- Give consumers access to the information when and where they need it. Consumers should not have to prepare themselfs before going out shopping by browsing some site(s) in the Net, figure out beforehand the list of brands of the things they want to buy and having to memorize the (environmental, work conditions, polution history, whatever) information for each brand just to make informed decisions. Simply put - if they have to jump through all those hoops people will just not do it.
Hence the sugestion of mobile access and bar code/rfid tag reading - fast, simple, no preparation required - you just scan the product and out comes an evaluation of the brand/maker according to your chosen criteria (for example, respect for the environment)
From the Grauniad article:
"... claiming that he was sacked for a "philosophical belief" in contravention of employment law and the European Human Rights Act."
I think he's right. He may be at a serious disadvantage having been at his job for only a week, but if his employer explicitly said his opinions OUTSIDE WORK were the reason for firing him, they're in trouble.
The HRA does only bind the government, I'm told, but UK employment law is quite sensible about this sort of thing.
Your position, however, I think is dead wrong. You seem to be saying that political or philosophical expression is limited to naming a political party, or possibly to identifying yourself with something that is a policy of a political party. I don't think that's supportable.
Up almost to the end of the article I was thinking that the employer was in the right, because I was taking it that they were firing him for either a history of, or a stated intent to, act in breach of copyright laws. A person who does that is a clear risk to their business.
However, the statement from Tribal Group, however (which may not completely reflect their views on this matter):
seems to suggest that he was fired for his expression of a political opinion. That would be unacceptable, and as far as I can see it would also be contrary to law.
I'd still need to have more information to decide who I think is right here. One quote form the employer isn't enough. But I'm sure your party-centric way of looking at it is wrong. I shouldn't need to have the agreement of a political party in order for my political views to be protected.
I can testify to that. I recently worked with a company to integrate with their Groove.net based solution, a peer to peer environment for document exchange and synchronization. However, when we prepared to present our work, I was told explicitly and repeatedly NEVER to use the phrase 'peer to peer'. Given that we were trying to use our resulting solution to sell the overall package, I found it quite disturbing that such steps were necessary.
I disagree and I'm the biggest proponent of free speech I know.
Look, i can't expect a company to continue my employement in widgets if I work for the anti-widget consortium and actively try to destroy the widget industry.
It's called conflict of interest. I don't want to hire someone at my widget plant if I even suspect he might try to sabotoge my widget manufacturing.
Free speech is not freedom from consequences and free speech isn't absolute. Your right to free speech, at least in the US, is limited as it relates to public safety. The old "fire in a crowded theater" bit and what not.
In this case, the employer felt that his views on copyright and intellectual property DIRECTLY conflicted with its business. I can't to the interview from the office right now (not screwing with production and all that) but I would be interested to hear what he said during the interview.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
In the United Kingdom that probationary period is 12 months. Though for certain things it is instant. So if you hire a woman, who when she starts the job tells you she is pregant, if you then sack her, you will be in trouble. Also if the employer is letting people go after 11 months to avoid them getting their years service and protection, they will also get done. The employment tribunal take a dim view of anyone trying to dodge the legislation.
However as he as just one week into his employment he is out in the cold.
This is actually one of the few solid reasons for firing someone in the UK. Almost all employment contracts I've seen state that the company may dismiss you if you're convicted of a crime (usually with an exemption for minor motoring offences, so they don't wind up firing 1/3 of the workforce for getting caught on speed camera).
That's always struck me as slightly at odds with all the prisoner-resettlement programmes, and the simple fact that a criminal who's done their time and been released is much less likely to reoffend if they find gainful employment. There's a fine line between someone's criminal past affecting their ability to do a job/the safety of their co-workers/etc. and the right (is it a right?) of employers and coworkers to know that they're dealing with a convicted criminal who did something they shouldn't have, but has now paid the price set by the court.
Of course, if you did a straw poll among non-criminal workers, I imagine it would be pretty clear which way most of them would come down.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
offering him a revised 3 month severance package when he had only been with the company a week kinda sounds like even they aren't sure whether what they've done is legal.
I think you're right. (Hence my advice to Hanff would be to take the money and run). However, as much lurking on Groklaw and IP-Wars has shown, the last place you want to end up in would be a courtroom (even an industrial tribunal style courtroom). Weird random crap happens there. So it may be that the company is simply saying "Look, we can either give this to him now, or pay possibly more to the lawyers tomorrow. Ah, screw it. Offer him the cash, and damn his eyes."
I'm no lawyer, so I can't say who is in the right legally, but I suspect that both parties have been a bit silly in this matter. Yeah, freedom of speech and all, but I don't think its unreasonable (especially as a new hire) to say to your employer that you're going to appear on Newsnight and speak on the following topics. And then they can't claim they were blindsided, or they can ask you not to appear. Similarly, I think that for an employer to be that paranoid about the political opinions of their employees and how they might play with potential customers is skirting the edge of reason.
I mean, I've appeared on TV, saying that the government's plans for key escrow sucked, but my employer (HP - but speaking in personal capacity here, etc, etc) was told beforehand. They might have thought that future government contracts were at risk, but they took the view that it was an acceptable risk for HP to employ people with more than one opinion. But the relative risks to HP versus a smaller operation are way different.
--Ng
Dan Farmer was asked to leave (then) large computer manufacturer when he released Satan. Dan Geer was asked to leave a so-called security company when he and other security notables argued in favor of heterogeneity for purposes of resilience. In the end, it was the companies that looked like idiots and not the above individuals. Bonus for the person who can name the companies...
So don't accept being a slave. Your time is your own, and you should insist on your contract acknowledging that.
At the risk of getting in trouble, since I'm posting this during my lunch hour at work, some of my colleagues and I did exactly this when our small company was bought out by a US megacorp. The original contract had clauses claiming all our IP outside of work, saying we had to get our manager's permission to take any other job, etc. We told them to stick it, pretty bluntly.
One guy doing that, admittedly, is going out on a limb. One guy leading it, with the vocal backing of several colleagues and the quiet backing of several more, is enough to make them notice.
This resulted in the (apparently unimpressed but not stupid) HR rep leading a round of Q&A to find out what it was that people really objected to, and getting the contract redrafted in a way that was acceptable to the staff. The entire "all your IP are belong to us" clause -- a whole page of legalese -- got scrapped, for example, in favour of the one we used to have that specifically excluded things that didn't use work time or resources, and weren't connected with work. The permission to get another job went, in favour of simply having to notify the employer of hours worked elsewhere so they could be sure they were complying with the European working time regulations.
We did this by being polite but honest, and standing our ground. If everyone in the industry did the same thing, it would be much better for everyone in the industry. It doesn't take rocket science, just a little integrity and a bit of backbone.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
In every employment contract I've seen in the UK, the probation clause was just written into the main contract. The contract normally carries on automatically if you don't terminate it, but can be terminated more easily than usual during the probationary period.
Do you have some reason to believe this wasn't the case here?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Well, there is one thing you can do for sure.
Many of Slashdot readers are decision makers for their company and some run huge companies themselves.
Boycott Tribal group when you purchase a solution in their genre.
"firing" is a right given by current economical system and boycott is the right answer and perfectly legit,serious.
Actually I was, and I have the paper work to prove it. Their statement to the press was an attempt to dampen down the situation. This was a career position with pension and prospects. This was a company who during the rigourous interview process phoned the agency that forwarded my application on several occassions to say how blown away they were with the quality of my application. This was a company who for my first week of a lifetime career did nothing but praise me very heavily for my progress and skills. This is a company that gave me permission to leave work early in order to do the interview. And this is the company who, the next day fired me for stating that I felt the actions of the MPAA are going to cause serious social harm.
This is a company that broke human rights law.
This is a company that broke employment law.
This is a company I will pursue with all the tools available, in a legal arena.
Alexander Hanff
In UK law he was dismissed, and has a very strong position.
The Company must have a justifiable reason to dismiss somebody, your political views are not a justifiable reason. if it doesn't it automatically loses at an employment tribunal.
The Company must have a dismissal procedure, if it doesn't it automatically loses at an employment tribunal.
The Company must follow that dismissal procedure, if it doesn't it automatically loses at an employment tribunal.
The dismissal procedure cannot be summary, if it is summary, (i.e. a director taking you into a meeting room to sack you on the spot) the company automatically loses at an employment tribunal.
The Company must have an appeals procedure, if it doesn't it automatically loses at an employment tribunal.
This guy has got this company by the short and curlies, not only will he get basic damages (about 1 weeks pay per year of service) he will get compensatory damages, because the Company never had or didn't follow even the most basic dismissal procedures. He can expect to walk away from a early settlement with about 18 month pay.