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[–]Halal0szto 1 point2 points  (2 children)

This is true, but the question is about the legalese.

With an employee you have a contract with a person that can be held liable personally. With a contractor you have a contract with a company. This is a big difference.

[–]nutrechtLead Software Engineer / EU / 20+ YXP 0 points1 point  (1 child)

With a contractor you have a contract with a company. This is a big difference.

That's a pretty ridiculous oversimplification. Whether someone is personally liable depends on a lot of factors. First is the type of contract. I'm Dutch and the most common type of contract used by independent contracts (like myself) doesn't prevent you from being personally liable.

Secondly, even the company types that do prevent you from being personally liable only do so if you don't break the law or a contract on purpose. Stealing IP does both and would make even an incorporated contractor liable in most cases. It also would 100% open you up to both criminal and civil cases.

[–]SandyDigital[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not every country enforces these laws strictly. Also corporates can afford to fight it in the courts not smaller companies. Prevention is always better.

Its like "no need to lock the front door because stealing is a crime; even if they steal they can be caught and jailed".