I chanced upon 2 parcels for an employee, addressed to our company name, opened them and found bulk quantities of blank DVDs and DVD cases. Turns out they make pirate DVD's in their spare time and are known to receive lots of similar parcels regularly here and sell the DVDs in the workplace. What is our legal position if we do nothing?
Jon Watkin
Replies (6)
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DVD Piracy
Jon
Key employee or not, the guy needs to be read the riot act and given a (final) written warning. Speak to a competent employment lawyer first.
Chris
Take this very seriously
Jon
I hope you do not think that I am being 'over the top' here, but I think you should take this very seriously.
This action by your employees could pose a threat to the survival of your business.
The authorities can, and do, take such piracy very seriously. Look at the 'criminal lifestyle' offences listed in paragraph 7 of Schedule 2 to the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and note that DVD piracy features alongside directing terrorism, arms trafficking, drug dealing and running a brothel. The reason is that all these sort of offences are associated with serious organised crime.
The purchase of bulk quantities of blank DVDs may already have been noticed by the authorities and the purchaser appears to be your business!
Do not be too surprised if the police turn up with a search warrant and an order freezing the business assets (including its bank accounts) while investigations are made (this is to avoid you disappearing with your ill-gotten gains!). Effectively this would close down your business because you would be unable to bank money from customers or pay wages or suppliers.
I would suggest you take legal advice with a view to the summary dismissal of the employee (or employees) involved.
You should also consider protecting your business by reporting the facts to the authorities. This should lessen the risk of the business being mistakenly identified as a criminal organisation.
Check the Piracy is a crime website particularly for the information concerning "office pirates" and how you can report them.
David
[email protected]
lack of control
The use of computers seems to have lessened internal control. When carbon copies of outgoing correspondennce was being used, it was common practice to have day file copy which would enable management to read all outgoing correspondence at least by the next day. Similarly in a business of any size all incoming mail had to be opened in the presence of at least two partners, managers or similar.
IT should enable similar controls. It would not be snoooping because the very knowledge that a form of control exists might be a sufficient deterrent.
Surely..
...buying BLANK DVDs and cases is not against the law??
Next you'll be saying ' this bloke gets sugar delivered to work' - better report him for illegal manufacrture of alcohol and duty evasion.
You have a huge problem!!
A client some years ago was sued for $100,000,000(!)by a major Hollywood studio because unbeknown to him his employees were printing pirate VHS wrappers on his little printing press at the back of his works.
Take professional advise from a competent law firm who can advise on employment and intellectual property aspects. Now you know, you can't ignore the position