First time that a business has been raided in pursuit of illegal file-sharing thanks to an “honest” tipster.
In a press release on its website, BPI, the British Phonographic Industry who represents hundreds of record labels, manufacturers and distributors in the UK, has confirmed that it has assisted police in raiding the Motherwell, Scotland offices of engineering company Honeywell after receiving a tip from a company employee alerting it of the existence of an extensive file-sharing network running on the company’s servers.
On conviction for piracy offences in the UK, company directors currently face unlimited fines and up to ten years in prison if convicted on indictment. On summary conviction, they currently face up to six months in prison and fines of up to £5,000.
It’s illegal to share songs on internal computer networks but, to date no company has been prosecuted for the offense for it’s difficult to weed out such activity without direct access to the network. The BPI has not, thus far, initiated an investigation into a company on suspicion of digital music piracy in the workplace.
The investigation was only launched after a Honeywell employee tipped off the BPI about the existence of the illegal file-sharing network, and whom also assisted by helping to retrieve evidence that led to a two month investigation and the eventual raid.
Employees are being questioned by investigators while the company’s servers are imaged for forensic investigation. So far thousands of songs have been thought to be illegally swapped on the internal file-sharing network, and thanks to the tipster, employees could now face criminal charges.
“Filesharing music in the workplace is illegal, misuses company resources, wastes employees’ time and introduces network security risks,” said BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor in response to the raid.
“Any businesses that are complacent in this area should take note: failure to put in place a stringent, enforceable policy to prevent staff copying and distributing music on company systems could expose the company, and the employees concerned, to the risk of civil proceedings or a criminal investigation.”
“Uploading music files to a company computer network for other employees to download is a serious offence. Filesharing music without permission, whether you are on the internet at home or in the office, is illegal and can carry stiff penalties,” Taylor also comments.
I’m glad he knows how employees of an engineering firm can best spend their time and make wiser use of precious company resources, and I’m sure the “tipster” is one of the more well liked guys or gals around around the office. Can you say “disgruntled employee?”
Honeywell Europe spokeswoman Ann Van Hooydonck said the company considered copyright infringement “a very serious matter” and had policies aimed at preventing piracy. I think the prospect of execs facing jail time and fines has been the wake up call and not that employees had spent some of their free time “wasting company resources.”
Moreover, what I’d like to know is what the threshold is for “illegal” file-sharing in terms of number of participants on a PRIVATE, CLOSED network. If I share music files with just a handful buddies, is that still illegal or is two handfuls the cutoff? Must you prove that you actually know each of them and that they aren’t strangers? What if all the users were situated in the same room or building?
This raid was just another example of the record industry wasting precious law enforcement resources instead of channeling their time and efforts on adapting to the needs of consumers rather than their own.
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I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus
Somebody should post the name and picture of the informer on a blog somewhere.
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