Can I use software my employer pays for to make money on the side?

February 21, 2022 11:34 PM

I have a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud that my employer pays for and which I use on my work laptop. I also put it on my own laptop and use it for my own (personal) projects. I felt comfortable with this because it doesn't cost my work anything extra and I'm using it on my own time. However, I've picked up some paid work on the side that I use the software for (again, on my personal computer and outside of my regular employer hours) and I'm feeling a little conflicted about the ethics of this.

Am I behaving unethically? My organization has no rule prohibiting me from using the software outside of work and I feel fine about using it to make party invitations and edit photos of my cat. But now that I'm making money from another source, I feel icky about it. Should I be?

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (26 answers total)

There’s an easy test: would you happily tell them you’re doing this? Ethical behaviour doesn’t fear transparency.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 11:54 PM on February 21, 2022 [10 favorites]

Since Creative Cloud is a flat subscription, as long as you are regularly using it for your job I don't personally see it as unethical towards your employer. But if they wanted to cancel your subscription because you didn't need it, or reassign your license to another employee, that could create an ethical dilemma. In that case you might be tempted to lie about how critical it is to your work responsibilities and I would consider that to be unethical.

Outside of that, this is very similar to pirating software or using a university-licensed version of software after graduation. Assuming that you could afford to pay the subscription you are "unfairly" denying revenue to the software company. In my opinion the ethics of software piracy depend on the specific product and company and I wouldn't lose much sleep over being theoretically unethical towards a company like Adobe. If this was was a niche product from a smaller company that needed support I would consider borrowing a license to be unethical.
posted by JZig at 12:10 AM on February 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

I wouldn’t hold up an at-will employer as the arbiter of what’s ethical. They* don’t care about you past their ability to optimize extracting your surplus value, retaining you so long as it’s profitable. Alerting them to a side gig could compromise that in their minds. (This assumes that they are a for-profit company; ymmv if you work for a cause you personally believe in.)

* “they” as an organization, maybe you’re lucky and this doesn’t apply to individuals within that organization

It takes nothing away from your employer. The only danger is them getting mad at you for installing it on your personal machine. Hopefully they can’t monitor your specific usage but I haven’t dived into the TOS.

Ethically it’s fine.
posted by supercres at 12:10 AM on February 22, 2022 [18 favorites]

Ethical behaviour doesn’t fear transparency

I stongly disagree with this statement, and not just as it relates to this question.*

If you want to protect yourself, do what you can to make sure no metadata from the employer carries over to the final product. You're certinaly not alone in using what's available to you to try to improve your life. One of my favorite writers often made reference to how the best part of her side job was that it gave her access to a typewriter. I can think of at least two musicians who were studio grunts before their careers blossomed, both of whom have since said that they sneakily made their demos and first works by using the studio equipment and instruments bands had brought while recording their own music.

Unless you're using provate knowledge from the copany that you've clearly understood to be private in the process, and you're not leaving footprints that could connect the company to material you make using the software that could be counter to the company's mission, I see no ethical quandary here.

*Without derailing, a lot of ethical and ethically-motivated stuff has to happen very quietly, secretly, and carefully. Editing cat photos doesn't rise to this, but I would note that an awful lot of pamphletting and organizing has been accomplished over the ages by clandestinely using the office Xerox.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 1:43 AM on February 22, 2022 [31 favorites]

If your org has no rules restricting your use of ACC subscription to only work-related stuff, then what are you worried about?

If you are really worried about it you can always ask HR first.
posted by kschang at 2:32 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

I think it's more a question of what your contract says than of ethics, but regardless, in a similar situation I decided that I could actually afford to pay for my own copy, and found that I liked the feeling of knowing I had my own stuff. (Depending on what you're doing there might also be good free alternatives.)
posted by trig at 2:50 AM on February 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

Work for hire. I'm not your lawyer, but I think you are putting your side work at risk of not owning the copyright of the work you create for them and possibly causing your main employer to be in violation of their contract with Adobe. How many hours of corporate lawyer time will your profits cover if your employer finds out and wants to pursue action?

If you instead purchased ACC on your own and had your main employer reimbursing you, or your contract has language about off-hours have of computer resources, then you would likely be in the clear.

IMO: don't ever use your W2 employer's resources for side work (barring that being an explicit perk of the job.) Don't even check an email account on their computers that receives emails about side work (let alone actually open side work emails.) A professional doesn't put their clients at risk of $$$ lawyers to save $ on software.
posted by flimflam at 3:21 AM on February 22, 2022 [19 favorites]

All employers are bad. And, you should fuck the system any way you can.

But you should also cover your arse because we all need to eat. So, read what it says in your contract of employment, which will supersede anything that we tell you here. Mine says, more or less: work that I create using company assets belongs to the company.
posted by rd45 at 4:24 AM on February 22, 2022 [17 favorites]

But you should also cover your arse because we all need to eat. So, read what it says in your contract of employment, which will supersede anything that we tell you here. Mine says, more or less: work that I create using company assets belongs to the company.

This is the key piece: read your employment documents. The ethical argument is a fun little side quest that is ultimately irrelevant. Are you setting yourself up for a world of hurt if your employer finds out and decides to enforce a contract you signed? Probably.
posted by phunniemee at 5:26 AM on February 22, 2022 [6 favorites]

(Not your lawyer and all that.)

From the legal side, like others have said: go to your employer's handbook or policy bank and see what the rules are about "moonlighting" or outside employment. I just looked at mine and it says that the company expects your full time and attention and discourages outside or self-employment, but they can make exceptions if you ask and you show that your outside work will not affect your day job. So if you started doing paid gigs without your employer knowing - and if they found out and were crabby employers - that might create an issue. Similarly, there may be separate provisions that talk about company property/technology use. Read that carefully to understand what your employer expects.

From the "ethics" side: it seems that ACC is not a finite resource or a variable cost for your employer. They pay a license fee and then it is "all you can eat." Your day job justifies the license on your computer(s) and so helping yourself to what's already there at night seems ethically harmless. It's like watching a YouTube video on the employer's internet or using mobile data on your work phone to listen to Spotify.

If you were keeping an extra license just to accommodate your own work, or if the cost was on an hourly basis, or if there was a shared login so that only one person could be accessing the software at a time, that would be different.
posted by AgentRocket at 6:28 AM on February 22, 2022

if your environment is anything like mine then your adobe creative cloud license allows you to install it on a personal machine, not just a work machine. the license is per individual not per machine.

if adobe cc is installed on your personal machine legally then it is perfectly reasonable and ethical to use it for personal projects.
posted by noloveforned at 6:45 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hopefully they can’t monitor your specific usage but I haven’t dived into the TOS.

You should assume that cloud-based services collect very detailed usage metrics and that depending on your jurisdiction might provided them to purchasing managers as a service.
posted by mhoye at 7:09 AM on February 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

This may be specific to my area (California, US) but all the jobs I've had in the last ten years have made it clear in various forms (employee handbook, contracts, etc) that they own any IP I generate with company hardware/software, even outside of normal working hours. I have also had stipulations that I not work on side gigs related to the topics/areas/themes that my employer does business in. I have not tested this, but I suspect that in my case, if I had an Adobe CC subscription, using that subscription for a paid side gig would trigger an uncomfortable conversation with HR. You should absolutely assume that the administrators of the CC plan can get usage data, at least on the level of "used for this long on this machine," if not specific filenames/etc.
posted by Alterscape at 7:20 AM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ethically from your side gig's client perspective, if your main employer fired you this afternoon and rescinded your access to this program, would you be able to access all past work and in-progress work for your side gig? If not, then you need an independent copy in my opinion. Being able to fulfill your obligations to your side gig is also ethically important.
posted by beaning at 7:33 AM on February 22, 2022 [6 favorites]

They pay a license fee and then it is "all you can eat."
the license is per individual not per machine.

Without seeing the actual contract in question I can't be sure, but both of these statements are dubious from a legal perspective. It is very likely to be all you can eat per individual, while doing work for the licensee. I worked for a very big org with a very nice license with Adobe and the contract was very explicit on that. I could install the tools on a number of machines as long as I was doing work for the org (and I believe the number of machines has been reduced in their recent contracts) but by license I could not use it for non-org work.

Similarly, when I worked in higher ed, I could license a lot of stuff for personal use at a really nice discount, but if it were ever used for profit (no matter how little) I would have had to switch licenses if I cared about legality (and I do).
posted by Candleman at 7:39 AM on February 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

It sounds like you haven't disclosed to your employer that you've put their software on your personal computer for your non-profit-making ventures. If you're not comfortable disclosing even that, then I think you know the answer to your question.
posted by hydra77 at 9:08 AM on February 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hou may find you don't have rights to what you create, both now, and especially later on. Some of my stuff is bound up in my machine even though it was created with a CS2 that I own. Now usage is cloud based. Those files are in a machine that never had the CS2, but did have a new cloud based suite until I could not afford it.
posted by Oyéah at 12:57 PM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

You asked about ethics, and ethically I wouldn't feel bad. But legally I would be very scared to do what you're doing. It seems very likely that either the Adobe license or your contract with your employer would not allow this.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 3:19 PM on February 22, 2022

If you're correct that your employer 'has no rule prohibiting me from using the software outside of work', then you're in the clear in my view. The exception would be if your side gig in any way represents competition for your employer (ie you're doing jobs that your employer may otherwise get). It's not your problem if doing work that your employer has permitted you to do is some form of breach of the software license, which I doubt anyone is going to care about anyway.

As others have suggested, the key risk is that your employer almost certainly owns the copyright to any work you create using your employer's tools. While this is unlikely to be an issue in real life, consider what the consequences would be if one of your clients ended up not being able to use the work you did for them. I doubt this is a big issue, though.
posted by dg at 3:34 PM on February 22, 2022

I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t do anything but work for my company on my work laptop because it’s not mine. My company’s policies also state you can only use work stuff for work, so there’s that.
posted by Geckwoistmeinauto at 4:07 PM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Ethically, I'd say you're fine. The software is paid for and being used appropriately for work. You're using it during non-work hours and in a way that doesn't harm its work use. I have absolutely no idea about legal implications but my tendency would be to say "screw it" and not tell anyone. This is such a minor situation that "no harm; no foul" rules apply.
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 4:32 PM on February 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Personally I feel like it would be extremely unethical for THEM to prevent you from doing this on your own time. It has literally no impact on them or on your work product, in fact the extra practice you’re getting can only help them, and the only reason for them to object would be pettiness and an unwarranted and undeserved sense of ownership over your personal time.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:21 PM on February 22, 2022

As a onetime CIO (of a 50 employee company and the title was just for show), I think you are right too ask this question. If mgmt is of the uptight nature, you could lose your job if discovered, even if there has been no harm to the company.

I think absolutely you need to keep all your side gig files separate from work files, and that means things like automatic backups and configuration files, too.

I get it that $600.year is a pretty big hit on an effort just above the "favor for a friend" level, equating to maybe 10 hours of work. I think it's fair to ask your side gig customers to chip in via separate charge. Otherwise, I'd look for cheaper software alternatives. There are open source options for just about everything.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:32 AM on February 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

You’re using an Adobe login your employer pays for to do freelance work? Freelance work that you couldn’t do unless your employer paid for it?

Awesome! Good for you!
posted by bendy at 11:53 AM on February 23, 2022

"If you want to protect yourself, do what you can to make sure no metadata from the employer carries over to the final product"
This pretty much impossible. What Flimflam says is excellent advice. If you use the company license, the the work is the company's. There's very little chance this will come into play, but if it does you will lose.

The flip side of this that software companies go after large organizations, and get paid, because employees use a trial version of whatever to create a work product and that's a violation of the free version. These products phone home all the time.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 8:26 AM on February 24, 2022

response to deleted
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:51 AM on February 26, 2022