police pressing charges

yvonne13_2

I'm following this thread with great interest as I find it strange that the boss had called in the police.

1. How did he get the site unlocked? Were assuming he paid an I.T expert...perhaps the OP could confirm if this were the case.

2. OP did the ex boss try and contact your wife for the password?

3. Why didn't your wife give her ex boss the password when she left?

There seems to be some missed information from your original post but hopefully you'll be back on Saturday with an update.

getmore4less

begining to look like there may have been an element of blackmail/extortion.

There are a few other issues.

you SHOULD not be developing web on public addresses no need for passwords.
if you do(becuse told to) and use passwords then you should make them known to the owners of the site and use them all the time.

If the password was only being used when not working on the site(indicated by so my wife locked it each day) then that actual point more to the reason was to deny access to the owner rather than the public by passwording.

Depending on the development enviroment/server it could be trivial to undo.

C_Mababejive

As I have no current briefs may i provide you with some Pro Bono advice?

Dont go to the Police station.

If the Police wish to interview and charge then let them formally arrest you and thus start the clock.

Until that happens,go about your business and continue to pursue this alleged charlatan for non payment of wages.

tyllwyd

Putting a password on the site to prevent an illegal act doesn't make sense - OK, the site as it stood used pictures which were under copyright. But if the OP's wife left the company without giving the owner access to the website, how was he supposed to replace the pictures with stock ones and make the website live? And anyway, once she had left the company surely it wasn't her responsibility to make sure that the owner did not infringe copyright - if she was worried, she could have contacted the copyright owners and left it to them to decide what action to take.

yvonne13_2

OP have you got an update?

timbo58

copyright is immensely difficult an area: e.g. I had a solicitor and a barrister give me advice in relation to copyright a few years back the upshot of which was:

IF the originator of the material can prove work used without permission elsewhere is their property they can take action.
HOWEVER this will only be likely IF the originator can prove they have suffered 'a loss' AND the person being prosecuted is worth taking action against.
In most other cases the perpetrator can simply agree to take down the offending articles/pictures and not use them again.

Uncertain

I think most people here are mixing up civil and criminal law.

Generally speaking any breach of copyright is a purely civil matter and nothing to do with the police. Normally police / customs / trading standards would only take an interest if copyright items were being manufactured for sale such as pirate DVDs.

However, misuse of computer systems such as gaining unlawful access (or preventing lawful access) are criminal offences.

Obviously holding anybody to ranson, even over a valid civil debt, by blocking access to their systems could well be blackmail or extortion.

Uncertain

timbo58 wrote: »

copyright is immensely difficult an area: e.g. I had a solicitor and a barrister give me advice in relation to copyright a few years back the upshot of which was:

IF the originator of the material can prove work used without permission elsewhere is their property they can take action.
HOWEVER this will only be likely IF the originator can prove they have suffered 'a loss' AND the person being prosecuted is worth taking action against.
In most other cases the perpetrator can simply agree to take down the offending articles/pictures and not use them again.

Again, this would not be a criminal prosecution. You would be suing them for damages in the civil court.

dizzyrascal

timbo58 wrote: »

copyright is immensely difficult an area: e.g. I had a solicitor and a barrister give me advice in relation to copyright a few years back the upshot of which was:

IF the originator of the material can prove work used without permission elsewhere is their property they can take action.
HOWEVER this will only be likely IF the originator can prove they have suffered 'a loss' AND the person being prosecuted is worth taking action against.
In most other cases the perpetrator can simply agree to take down the offending articles/pictures and not use them again.

Not difficult to prove at all. I work for a university and it was recently discovered that an image had been accidentally used without permission. Owner got a good payout and all staff got an email reminder about the dos and don'ts of using images on the website.
It was all settled out of court as the copyright had clearly been breached, no point arguing.
Also, anyone involved in web design or marketing should be very aware of the laws relating to copyright.

yvonne13_2

The OP has yet to give an update so let's see if he comes back what he has to say.