In defense of the author's reactions and feelings, I suggest that obtaining files from "non-public" storage devices, albeit network-accessible, without prior consent/advisement of an author is generally rude, poor form, and unprofessional.
Having said that, U.S. case law supports the company policy, especially if the policy explicitly states, "...no expectation of privacy on the network..." Additionally, case law sides with company ownership of any creative work that derives from use of company resources (i.e, computers, memory, disk, printers, et cetera) to develop that work, by company employees or its agents, unless specifically excluded by written agreement by a company representative authorised to profer consent in behalf of the company.
In the future, if the author wishes to affirm retained ownership of her/his creative works, s/he should create the work with personal resources on personal time, at least use accepted "common-copyright" designations, and advise the company to explicitly add the work to their Human Resources jacket under a section entitled, "Personal works for which the employee retains ownership and control." (I have had several titles listed/protected in my HR jacket that I created prior to, and even during, employment relationships.) If an author wishes to create such a work of retained ownership, they should contact the company's legal department and agree and document ownership and appropriate company use prior to any development of creative works.
So, in the absence of such documentation, the brochure author probably needs to cool her/his jets. This would also be a good time for the company's legal eagles to reaffirm the company's policy on "creative works", in an e-mail to all employees.
Cheers,
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Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
@ 06:29 (04Feb05) UTC (aka "GMT" and "Zulu"),
@ 23:29 (03Feb05) Mountain Time
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