india online-piracy
How much trouble would a company be for using pirated software and ripping off online course videos and selling them as their own
<p><strong>My Situation</strong></p>

<p>I was hired as a UI/graphics designer for <strong><em>company A</em></strong>. This is a startup company and the environment is not very professional which I kinda like. But some people who are friends with company A's boss started their own company (Company B) that is  essentially an IT training center. But unfortunately the company is not willing to pay for software so they pirate <strong>EVERYTHING</strong>, or well almost everything. </p>

<p>Now as I understand this is pretty bad in and of itself for a company to do as I know some companies nearby who have gotten a very big fine from Adobe for pirating their software. But recently I've been told to edit videos even though it wasn't really what i was hired to do, but I did it always because I'm new. </p>

<p>But now the videos i have been editing are essentially online courses from udemy that were pirated. I've been asked to remove the watermarks and remove the personal explaining in the video if any. I feel like this is a very bad thing for me to do but I can't see to talk them out of doing it. I have already expressed my displeasure with this and it seems they don't care.</p>

<p><strong>Im asking this question to see if i can come up with a legal reason to present to them to hopefully stop this unethical work.</strong></p>

<p>Company A is located in  India, specifically  Kerala, south India. </p>

<p>What company B is doing, and apparently Company A is instructing you to help Company B do, is quite likely to be both copyright infringement and trademark infringement. According to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_India" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia Article on "Copyright law of  India"</a> Infringement can result in civil damages and injunctions, and in some cases in criminal charges with possible imprisonment as well as fines. (Note: fines, if any, are levied by the government, not the copyright holder.) India adheres to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Berne Copyright Convention</a> and other international copyright treaties. The basic law is the  Copyright Act 1957, which was amended several times, most recently in 2012.</p>

<p>According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_trademark_law" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the Wikipedia article on "India Trademark law"</a> The Trade Marks Act, 1999 is the current law in India on trademarks. Indian law does allow for protection of unregistered trademarks under common-law principles. See also <a href="http://ipindia.nic.in/trade-marks.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this official page</a>.</p>

<p>Most copyright and trademark enforcement is done by copyright and trademark holders through civil suits, not by police through criminal charges; although criminal charges can be used.</p>

<p>What if anything you can tell your employers to persuade them not to do this is hard to say. You could tell them that criminal charges are possible, which is true, but not likely, and may not deter them. You could anonymously inform the copyright/trademark holders of what is being done, as it seems you know who the holders are.  You could threaten to quit, but might easily find yourself looking for another job.</p>
