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I work for a Greek affiliate of a USA company.

In the past, the company itself did the mistake to buy a bunch of AutoCAD and AutoCAD Plant 3D licenses in USA for use in both offices (USA and Greece).

Recently, I found out that those licenses bought in USA are not valid in any other country (terms of use by AutoDESK). The license might be able to get transferred to the Greek company by proving some degree of connection between the two companies (pending to be proven).

The IT of the whole organization agrees with me that the licenses are not valid for use in Greece right now, and they bring that issue to the USA management.

USA management seems reluctant to address the issue (probably being afraid that this transfer might not be possible, and that they might have to buy new licenses for the Greek office).

If asked to work using this software in Greece, can I deny working as part of being ethical?

Ge Peace
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  • Can they fire you? – paparazzo Sep 27 '18 at 21:04
  • @Kilisi you have a point there... but now it's been found out so the issue is another – DarkCygnus Sep 27 '18 at 21:33
  • Crazy idea: Why not have the Valid AutoCAD software on PC's on USA, but use a remote login or VPN to access those PCs from Greece... not sure if this would be a valid bypass but perhaps worth looking into – DarkCygnus Sep 27 '18 at 21:34
  • @paparazzo They could. The funny is that currently the work that requires the use of the Autdesk software is published in a EU Horizon 2020 program. – Ge Peace Sep 27 '18 at 21:14
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    Possible duplicate of How can I approach management when asked to work without a software license? – DarkCygnus Sep 27 '18 at 21:35
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    @DarkCygnus because when you start scrutinising things in a business that have nothing to do for you it sends a message to your bosses. – Kilisi Sep 27 '18 at 21:36
  • @Kilisi It is not my job, but as part of the work being published in a EU program (so drawings are audited by third parties). I tried to protect the company by searching any details they might have missed. There was a period of time being slow so I did that. Actually it did not take long (just a google search) – Ge Peace Sep 27 '18 at 21:42
  • The watermarked drawings only apply to the educational versions of Autocad I think, are the commercial ones watermarked as well now? – Kilisi Sep 27 '18 at 21:45
  • @DarkCygus From what I read Autodesk is unique with their terms of use universally! Probably as every license is enormously expensive. IT is responsible to find the right and cheapest path to address the issue. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-key-checks-preparing-autodesk-audit-robin-fry/ – Ge Peace Sep 27 '18 at 21:47
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    Greek Company is owned by an American company. What does AutoDesk have to say with regards to this situation? The terms might not be written to handle your situation – Donald Sep 28 '18 at 02:21
  • @Ramhound Autodesk licences are country specific. The company that owns the licenses is a USA company. That USA company is stakeholder in other minor USA company that is 100% stakeholder in the Greek entity (3 steps). Autodesk permits USA workers to travel with their own licenses but Greek entity employees are supposed to use their own licenses as a principle (except the transfer procedure I mentioned above). I believe in a way is correct, as sales tax in Greece is 24% and in USA it is 6%. So in an indirect way that software rule protects the taxes revenue of my country. – Ge Peace Sep 28 '18 at 08:48
  • @Kilisi I do not think a company is supposed to use any Student version for commercial use (terms of use). Our IT admin stopped us from using the free version of the Teamviewer software for that purpose. – Ge Peace Sep 28 '18 at 13:12
  • @GePeace yes I know, we have autocad and several other products... but as far as I know the student version is the only one which is watermarked so you can tell it hasn't got a valid commercial use licence. But in your question you imply that outsiders would know it's not properly licenced by the end product, The only way they would know is if it is watermarked. – Kilisi Sep 29 '18 at 02:19
  • @Kilisi That there is small chance to be caught, it does mean that it is correct and professional (especially for the IT admin that endangers his reputation in the IT circles). The way to be caught would be from having drawings having the Greek company logo and those drawing being in a public forum and somebody reviewing them as a part Autodesk audit procedure (actually it exists)..... IT admin does not feel comfortable with that either, as he sends reminders to USA management to contact the sales guy in USA to check for the AutoCAD license transfer procedure possibility. – Ge Peace Sep 29 '18 at 07:49
  • I don't even remember the details, all I remember is a huge licence payment for autocad which we only used once because some consultant didn't know how to work with the alternative cad product. I replaced him as soon as I found out. Didn't pay him and never employed him again. – Kilisi Sep 30 '18 at 05:44

3 Answers3

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If asked to work using this software in Greece, can I deny working as part of being ethical?

Sure, you can try to refuse working with such software.

However, the thing here is that your boss may not like you refusing doing such work, and may insist that you work with it... or in worse cases terminate you for not following a direct order.

I can relate with your situation; working with software that is not licensed is not quite ethical or merry thing to do. However, if someone is getting into trouble it will be your boss/company owners, for having their workers use such software without proper license.

They still haven't told you to use such unlicensed software, so there is still a chance they reconsider...

If they don't, well... you can express your concerns of using such software to your superiors, and it's up to them to decide how to proceed. It's now up to you if you decide to comply with such request or not, having in mind that you accept any consequences of the action you take.

DarkCygnus
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no, you can't.

ethics means many things, but it's rarely useful as a justification for not doing something.

a reason to not do something is

  • it is illegal
  • it is unprofitable
  • it is unproductive
  • it is counter productive

these are an things that, when avoided, benefit a company in a measurable manner (usually measured in dollars!), and are thus reasons.

You are talking about ethics, a very broad and very deep philosophical area. there are 5 such areas. there is a deep corpus of work on ethics, I'm very much sure that your scenario is covered somewhere there, if only as an analogy.

But you don't appear to work in a university and you don't appear to be writing a dissertation on a niche issue... so I wouldn't bring up ethics.

bharal
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  • It is illegal (https://www.bsa.org/anti-piracy) for the company to use software not licenced with me not having any impact from their actions (including my action of using the unlicensed software for my country) according to rest of the answers (Employer is responsible for keeping himself legal). – Ge Peace Oct 03 '18 at 18:12
  • Unlicensed software covers the the case of license infringement in our case (use of a license in a country other than the one it was acquired) – Ge Peace Oct 03 '18 at 18:20
  • @GePeace i would be honestly stunned if the company that your company bought a very expensive license from took any action whatsoever. That would be remarkably stupid. If they're ont going to take action, then it's hard to qualify it as "illegal". – bharal Oct 03 '18 at 19:01
  • I am not responsible to qualify it is as illegal in legal terms, BSA and Autodesk with their audits are. If there are 0.000000000001% chances to be caught from the enforcement, it does not mean it is not illegal. An yes, if they all knew the infringement, they would take action (at least a request for reaching a compromise before a court decision...) – Ge Peace Oct 03 '18 at 19:19
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First, ethics are hard...

That said, in this case there are professionals and personal ethical considerations.

First personal, do you feel that using the software is an acceptable thing to do? Would you be ashamed to tell your mother or child that you did so? If so, it’s against your personal ethics. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do so, but you should weigh doing the wrong thing versus how much you need to keep getting paid by this employer.

Secondly, professional ethics. That’s actually easier in this case. If you were required to inform your next employer about this, say it magically appeared on your resume, would that have a positive, negative or neutral impact on your getting a job with the kind of company you would want to work for? If negative, it’s against your professional ethics.

Again, this doesn’t mean you should refuse if the answer is negative, just that you need to decide how much possibly damaging your future prospects weighs in consideration.

You should also consider the legal implications of doing this: can you be held financially or criminally liable?

Finally, after considering the personal and professional ethics, as well as any legal liability, you need to weigh the consequences. Can you afford to do the right thing? Can you afford to NOT do the right thing.

jmoreno
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  • Thank you very much for the answers: For the personal: As living in Greece where software piracy for everyday users is a pretty common thing and not enforced for simple users, I would not be ashamed to tell that to others. Although my personal ethics tell me to respect another company's IP the same way you expect others to respect your own IP. This leads to the professional ethical considerations: depending on my next employer, I would be ashamed to tell that, as they might think my previous experience is not a serious one and that I have learnt the wrong way. – Ge Peace Oct 05 '18 at 15:04
  • Nobody is proud for using corruption to move on even successfully. – Ge Peace Oct 05 '18 at 15:04
  • @GePeace: some won’t view it as corruption. – jmoreno Oct 06 '18 at 12:00
  • I agree with that it depends on what companies' competitors do on a specific locale. – Ge Peace Oct 06 '18 at 14:10