Legal Question in Technology Law in California

Legal obligation of data recovery specialists to report illegal software

I have a personal external hard drive I purchased about 3 weeks ago, which recently crashed. There is some confidential company information on it, as well as some pirated software. If I were to send it back to the manufacturer's (Iomega) HQ in California for data recovery, would they be legally obligated to report my possession of the illegal software if they suspected it was illegally obtained?

Iomega's confidentiality policy reads: ''Iomega agrees not to disclose any and all information or data files supplied with, stored on, or recovered from client equipment except to employees, independent contractors, lawyers, or agents of Iomega subject to confidentiality agreements or as required by law.'' What does this entail, and would they have to prove it was illegally obtained?


Asked on 7/21/05, 5:21 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Stone Law Offices of Michael B. Stone Toll Free 1-855-USE-MIKE

Re: Legal obligation of data recovery specialists to report illegal software

Shame on you for breaking the copyright law. My best guess is that Iomega 1) sees this kind of stuff all the time; 2) may not notice; 3) is probably not in the business of policing copyrights; 4) does not have the time or personnel to inquire whether X software is or is not licensed; 5) probably does not care; 6) almost certainly has no legal duty to rat you out to anybody; and 7) will probably recover any data you pay them to recover without looking very closely at it. Of course, if they decided to throw your pirated files in the bit bucket, you would not have any legal right to squawk about it.

The only circumstances in which I could envision them informing on you is if they were to discover (assuming they were to view the data during the recovery process) something that would clearly be a crime for you to possess, for example government-classified information or child pornography.

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Answered on 7/21/05, 5:55 pm


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