Music Downloads:
Keep 'em Legal or Face the Music

If you or any of your employees have any unlicensed copies of copyrighted music or other protected media on your computer, you're at risk for unbelievable damages should you be caught.

The United States Copyright Act empowers copyright holders to sue for statutory damages and recover from $750 to $30,000 for each infringement, without the plaintiff being required to prove monetary loss. If the court determines that there was willful infringement, the figure goes up to $150,000 ... PER SONG/MEDIA FILE.

You can be held liable for your employees' illegal media copies and downloads on company computers. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is aggressively pursuing copyright violators and notifying Fortune 1000 companies of its campaign to locate and prosecute all violators.

The following are basic steps you need to take in order to protect yourself from liability:

1. BLOCK INTERNET ACCESS TO FILE-SHARING SERVICES, such as KaZaa, Morpheus, Grokster, etc.

2. ROUTINELY SCAN HARD DRIVES for media files such as *.mp3, *.mov, *.avi, *.mpg, and so forth. Delete the illegal ones.

3. INSPECT EMPLOYEES' COMPUTERS FOR FILE-SHARING SOFTWARE. Remove it!

4. HAVE A WRITTEN POLICY THAT PROHIBITS COMPUTER MEDIA CONTENT that has not been previously approved by management.

5. DISCIPLINE EMPLOYEES WHO VIOLATE YOUR POLICY. Document your actions and take steps immediately to clean up affected computers.

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© Copyright 2007 Michael Riley. All rights reserved.