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Would You Install Pirated Software at Work?
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?"
It's a hard path, and I know someone who has walked it. I have a cousin who was in the same situation and was fired for refusing to perform those illegal acts.
If you are in your grace period, they can terminate you without giving a reason, but if you've been employed for some time they cannot legally fire you for refusing to perform an illegal act.
In the end, my cousin didn't get anything out of it. He had to find another job (and did) but he did have the satisfaction of seeing the company get busted for unrelated illegal actions, which were then compounded when the illegal software was discovered.
To this day, even though it was tough being forced to find a new job, he is glad that he took a stand against it... and I'll be the first to admit that I admire him for it.
This is not a sig.
And when you file for unemployment, and they deny your claim at first because your left voluntarily, and then you file paperwork in response that you left under duress after being ordered by a superior to do something against the law, stuff gets interesting!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
1) Early in my career, a VP walked into my office and asked me to steal a copy of a competitor's source code. I refused. I later found out he'd already asked someone else more senior, who had also refused. He eventually came to his senses, and never asked us to do anything unethical or illegal again. Everyone lived happily ever after.
2) A few years later at another company, two C?Os kept a vendor busy while another VP "borrowed" a copy of their code "until we can afford to pay it back". The rest of us found out about this when the company got sued. Not long after, the company went into bankruptcy and everyone was laid off. Just before thanksgiving. Happy holidays to all the rest of us. I don't think it came to criminal proceedings against the officers of the company, but it very well could have. Civil suits were also filed against the CEO/CFO team, and they declared personal bankruptcy as well.
So which boat would you rather be in?
I know, you could end up getting chunked out of the boat all together. At that point, I'd drop the hammer on them. If you think think that's a likely scenario, speak with a lawyer NOW so if they threaten you, you know what to say. That might solve teh problem.
Trust me, they will. Same thing happened to me.
I sent such an email. Was then called into the managers office and told in no uncertain terms that if I sent an email like that again I'd be kicked out of the building. They don't like that stuff because it's tracable.
This company had one MSDN for 100 employees. An unlicensed exchange server, mostly unlicensed XP, unlicensed VS2003, unlicensed office, you name it, they didn't license it.
They also ran a single (pirated) vmware GSX server and rented the resulting virtual machines to customers not telling them they were virtual.
This is not uncommon - every company I've ever been with has had the same attitude.
Of course when they all but ordered me to hack into a rival companies servers and steal their data I put my foot down - stripping it from webservers and demo versions of their software is fair game... hacking? I wasn't going to do jail time for them and refused.
My contract and enlistment oath says I swore to "obey all LAWFUL orders", and they're quite quick to fry anybody woh does something illegal with the cop-out "but I was ordered to...."
Think so, huh? Wonder what 1LT Ehren Watada has to say about that.
Besides, the Nuremberg Doctrine is a shining example of victor's (so-called) justice. The Allies knew right, good and well that "but I was refusing an illegal order" would have gotten nowhere. "That's nice, private. Would you like a blindfold? A cigarette? Do you have any last words?" Watada's situation is proof positive of that.
I have karma to burn, so fire away, wingnut mods.