[olug] MPAA toolkit

[Jim O'Gorman]

On 11/30/07, Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday 28 November 2007, Kevin wrote:
> > What does this mean for universities or businesses in general? It
> > would apply more to management than to sysadmins. If management
> > doesn't care if you've got 800 MP3s from 400 well-known artists on
> > your HD, along with KaZaa/etc, then they're going to get dinged by
> > *IAA. But if people get fired for such activities after some
> > port-snooping, then the courts will be more lenient to such
> > businesses.
>
> Why is it your employer's job to enforce the law? Is Joe Manager getting a
> bountiful reward for firing his top engineer because he downloaded a MP3?


The employer must show due diligence in enforcing legal use of
company assets, of which the company is held responsible for. This does not
mean that "top engineer" must be fired for downloading an mp3. It does mean
"Joe Manager" must follow company policy in enforcing a
defined disciplinary action against top engineer for a violation of company
policy.

This is assuming company policy requires legal use, and the mp3 download is
a copyright violation. It could also be a legally shared mp3 file, but a
violation of company acceptable use policy for the download, storage, or use
of the file.

The fact is, companies are held responsible for actions taken on their
networks. If the company can show they maintain diligence in monitoring
for illegal activities with acceptable followup, in most cases they will be
OK. If the company takes no action to monitor for illegal activities, that
could be more then just a legal issue. The board of directors or stock
holders could well charge executive management with gross incompetence,
leading to loss of employment. Personally, I think this is a greater degree
of incentive to the executive management then a simple fine applied to the
company.

As for the employers responsibility to enforce the law, no. Law
enforcement enforces the law, against the responsible party. The responsible
party is the employer unless and until the employer can pass
the responsibility to the employee. This is one reason why contracting is so
popular. The employer is not enforcing the law, but protecting company
assets.

-- 
Jim O'Gorman
jameso at elwood.net
http://www.elwood.net