Trade An MP3, Lose Your Job 35
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?
First! (Score:2)
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>
5mb files..... gee wonder why there were fired. (Score:2)
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 @$$
=============
Who said they were illegal? (Score:3)
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?
Re:5mb files..... gee wonder why there were fired. (Score:1)
Mis-use of company resources has always been nothing more than an easy way to fire someone. If the companies were to say it was because employees were trading "illegal" mp3s, they would be open to having to prove in court the illegality of the MP3s.
But as you said, we are reaching conclusions based on 2 sentences from (of all people) whoever is using the Robert X Cringely alias this week.
Good. (Score:3)
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Rumour Control (Score:3)
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.
MP3s thrash our link (Score:1)
I really don't find this unreasonable.
Micro$oft's Policy (Score:1)
Re:Rumour Control (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:5mb files..... gee wonder why there were fired. (Score:2)
When I brought this to the attention of the powers-that-be, I was told "if they have nothing better to do, send them to us". When I further told them that other, more important e-mails were being held up as a result of this, the president of the company sent out a note basically saying "don't, or suffer the consequences".
If these are smaller companies, this seems like a very fair thing to me. It's pure hell as a network administrator to be asked "Why is my e-mail so slow", and eventually have the complaints filter up and cost time and effort where none is needed.
A lot of people fail to realize that PCs at work don't belong to them in most cases; they belong to their place of employment. They have an acceptable use policy more often than not. IMHO... they need to act accordingly and fetch their MP3s at home.
meisenst
Re:Rumour Control (Score:3)
I've heard of people getting fired for pr0n, games, and sex in the office, but that is the first I've heard of people getting fired for MP3s.
That's the Way to Do It (Score:1)
Or at least, a need for a soundcard in every computer.
Re:Simple Solution (Score:1)
They were probably walking on thin ice already. (Score:1)
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
I sidestepped the issue. (Score:3)
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.
Re:Simple Solution (Score:2)
They now disable the device in BIOS, and 'forget' to install drivers for it. It's trivial to activate, but none of the marketdrones seem to have the technical ability to.
Still, it didn't stop the endless parade of family and freinds fu>oring the connection from mailing into the office; A mail filter noted almost 10G of MPEG and AVI movies in one day, as well as 5 in WAV files.
This is SO CSC (Score:1)
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.
I would file... (Score:1)
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 best policy is (Score:2)
LK
Re:The best policy is (Score:1)
Fired for not working? Who'da thunk it? (Score:2)
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...
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Re:Simple Solution (Score:1)
Net access from your desktop PC was limited to only those sites which were explicitly allowed (i.e. CNN). Full access to the net was provided on a single PC per floor that was not connected to the rest of the LAN. Even this was filtered in some way, but apparently only by keywords in the URL.
E-mail was filtered by a lovely product from Norton that held certain attachments until they could be reviewed by a human. Naturally, it stopped EXEs, but they also included most graphics files. Norton would also look inside zip files. Of course, I soon discovered that most "contraband" non-EXE files could be snuck in by simply changing the extension.
Desktop boxes had sound cards and speakers, so you could hear all the default windows sounds...whee.
Oh, and when they set up some new high-powered PCs in a common work area, they left the CD-ROMs hooked up, but disabled the devices in WinNT. Minor detail was that they made our accounts local admins, so a few clicks was all it took to be able to listen to CDs...
In the meantime, the people in IS had full access to anything on the net and e-mail attachments, and were frequently passing around novelty EXEs that could have been hellacious trojans (and they had all kinds of admin access to the whole enterprise).
Anyway, the futility of this system, and the fact that it greatly interefered with accessing the resources that I needed, was a sore point with me the whole time I was there.
Sucks to be them (Score:1)
Reminds me that I need to borrow some DVD's from him soon.. :)
Re:First! (Score:2)
So ignore them. Even better, go to your user page and disable them alltogether.
IMHO I think YRO has been a great addition to Slashdot. Maybe it is a little bit grim, dark, paranoid and soapy, but that makes it interesting all the more. Makes me wonder if there are many DS9 fans here hehe.
While not everything has the same importance and redundancy is unavoidable, YRO does touch some very important issues. They might not matter a lot to you, but the deCSS,MP3,hyperlink,privacy,etc events could have a wide impact on the way we know the Internet - and the marvel of information and communication in general.
I will only miss YRO when there is no longer a need for it. I hope to see that day - naive eh?
MP3 is just a file format.
Napster is just a protocol. deCSS is just a program. A chainsaw is just a tool. Our brains simply can comprehend matters a lot better when the issue is focussed on something we can relate to. And most people can relate to MP3. That's why were stuck on it.
Re:5mb files..... gee wonder why there were fired. (Score:1)
Hurtling towards 30...
Music while working (Score:2)
Corporate machines (Score:1)
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.
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Re:Fired for not working? Who'da thunk it? (Score:1)
I can just see the HR department making it against company policy to read, post to, or even talk about
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Sadly, in some states... (Score:1)
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.
Re:I sidestepped the issue. (Score:1)
simple solution (Score:1)
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!
Read your employment agreements.... (Score:2)
*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.
Re:The best policy is (Score:1)
Go, dot-coms!!!
Re:5mb files..... gee wonder why there were fired. (Score:1)
As soon as you start distributing them via e-mail however, you are starting to use up valuable bandwidth, delaying more important business related mail and possibly even breaking the law, if you're distributing copyrighted music. (We've seen our e-mail hubs here getting clogged by MP3, MPEG and AVI files which really delayed some important mails by several hours) All that, plus the fact that the network lines usually cost lots of money, gives any company with an 'acceptable use of computer material' policy enough justification to fire you. (At my company you receive a warning first though)
Greetings