Employer Used an Employee's Name and Email Address for a Contentious Exchange

Good afternoon,

I am a manager at an off-campus college textbook store (very small local business). Often times there are professors for the university we cater towards that require custom-made copy-written material for their courses. One such professor, the copyright holder, do not allow our location to stock and sell her material. However, my store's owner (my boss) instructed me to obtain a quote for this professor's material from the third-party business that produces the material. We successfully received a quote and an order was placed for copies. I then received, via my work email, an email from the professor exclaiming her disappointment that the third-party company would go behind her back and sell he her copy-written material.

It is at this point that my boss began (unbeknownst to me until he decided to inform me, mind you) to have an email conversation with the copyright holder using my email address and signing my name to the bottom of said emails. Now the copyright holder is threatening legal action and I am afraid that my boss has thrown me under the bus to keep him from being liable of any legal issues.

I have confronted my employer (with a witness present) about impersonating me and have made it known that I am not comfortable with how this has played out thus far. I have also managed to get him to admit to signing my name to said emails via a text message. I am open to any advise that can help me clear my name of any involvement. I am currently reliant on this job to cover my living costs and bills, so I am kind of stuck in a hairy situation. Any advice is certainly appreciated.

-Best

Don't you password protect your email account? If you don't; start.


Beyond that im kind of missing your point. If the entity you purchase the documents from had the legal right to sell you what they did, then I'm not seeing the violation of any law. So, did the entity you purchase the documents from have the legal right to sell them to you?

Who placed the order?

My email is password protected, but somehow my employer managed to either guess my login information or obtain it through some other means that I'm not aware of (more protection can certainly be address on my part, I'll admit), but I don't think that would trump the fact that he impersonated me without my permission.

As for the copyright issue, it's a little tricky so allow me to explain further.
I work for an off-campus bookstore that is not affiliated with the university we cater to in an official fashion. Through the Open Records Act, I'm legally allowed to request any and all correspondence that my counter-parts at the Official Campus Bookstore obtain from professors and departments. This information is used to stock and shelve the current semester's texts/materials. When a copywritten text is being used for a course, we obtain the .pdf etc files from the Campus Bookstore via these Open Records Act requests.

I then forward such information to the third-party printers/publishers to place our off-campus quotes/orders. Often times I will received an email from these third-party publishers asking for proof of permission from the copyright holder (in this case, the professor that authored the material) before an order can be placed. In this situation, I received the material information from the Campus Bookstore as normal. I then forwarded the information to the third-party publisher for a quote. I then received a confirmation and tracking information for the order...with no such permission request from the publisher.

Once the product arrived, we shelved the material as normal. I assume that at this point word somehow spread to the professor (copyright holder) that her material was being sold on our shelves, to which she sent an email stating her displeasure that we would sell her material without her permission and that the third-party would go behind her back to provide us with such material. This is the point where my boss began to have argumentative conversations with the involved parties...but doing so under the guise of me. Therefore, I am not quite sure who is to blame. My bookstore for not providing proof of permission to sell the material? Or the third-party who allowed us to place an order for the material? Also, if this ends up being a legal issue, I'm not sure if I personally would be responsible for any blame since I technically did not have any say in the issue...despite the fact that my employer was impersonating me via my email.

I really appreciate the quick responses and the advise. Many thanks, indeed.

-Best

Your employer has the legal right to use your work email account. It isn't impersonation and it isn't illegal.

If any illegalities arise vis a vis the copyrighted material, you will not be held personally accountable.

So you're OK on all fronts. :)

What state is this in. Most open records acts do not allow for private creations to be provided to anybody.


Even if you were able to obtain the documents, unless you had permission or know of some basis to be able to reproduce and distribute the document, there is an infringement issue.

Whose name was used to request the printing of the material? If yours then you do have something to worry about. From your original post it sounds like you made the order.

Im in total disagreement with eerelations. I see a lot of issues to be concerned about.


Is the material still on your shelves? If so I would suggest removing it unti this is resolved. Willful infringement, especially for commercial purposes, can be a very serious matter.

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Quoting eerelations

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Your employer has the legal right to use your work email account. It isn't impersonation and it isn't illegal.

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the employer may have a right to use an employees work email but they do not have the right to represent themselves as the employee.

Georgia is the state.

The material is NOT on the shelf and to be honest, not a single sale was made for any copies. So no actually monetary transactions have been made in terms of retailing the material. I have also contacted the third-party publisher to keep them abreast of the situation, along with a request for refund/return instructions to remove the material from my location completely.

As far as the impersonation of my email goes...let me be clear. My employer was 100% pretending to be me in regards to verbiage, writing style, etc. When the copyright holder emailed my boss via HIS actual work email, he responded as if he was not privy to the email conversation between "me" (him pretending to be me, that is) and her. Again, I have been able to get verbal, and written, documentation from him admitting that he knowingly represented himself as me.

I hope this information helps. Thanks again for the educated responses. Very much appreciated everyone.

-Best

It doesn't matter that your boss was "100% pretending to be" you. If it's a work email address, your employer is legally free to do this. Period.

Regarding the copyrighted material, if your employer wants to embroil itself in a copyright battle with one of its employees (i.e., the professor) then your employer is free to do so. You will not be held personally accountable in this battle even if your employer is pretending that you are (by "impersonating" you via email).

You are safe. Just do what your boss tells you to do, and if the you-know-what hits the fan, it's on your boss, not you.

Thanks. That's what I was trying to get to. Sorry for the walls of explanation. I just wanted be be sure that if the you-know-what was headed in the fan's direction that I would not be held accountable personally. Thank you again for the council!

Quote:

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Quoting eerelations

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It doesn't matter that your boss was "100% pretending to be" you. If it's a work email address, your employer is legally free to do this. Period.

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Where exactly are you coming up it this? His boss does not have the right to impersonate his employee just because the email is hosted on the company server.