Who Owns Your Weblog?

An anonymous reader asks: "If you're a weblogger, have you read the fine print of your employment agreement? Many webloggers are techies and many tech employers have highly restrictive IP clauses in their employment contracts - the employers owns you and everything you do whether at work or at home or anywhere else. Are you sure you own your weblog? You may not be allowed to take it with you when you change jobs." As always, please remember to look over those employment contracts before you sign. With that point mentioned however, are employers still likely to employ someone who is willing to argue points on their contract, especially in this economic climate?

Comments

easy. I do.

[susehat]

I never let anyone have my ideas. I always disclose that I have the rights to all my work, and my employer has no rights at all, unless I implicitly assign them. I usually do, but hey, still, I'm not going to sell out. I have yet to run into any issues in the past, and this was for a government contractor.

Creative editing

[Anonymous Coward]

A while back, my employer asked me to sign yet another IP assignment agreement ... sigh. Fortunately, it was sent around as an MS-Word document to be printed, signed and turned in to HR.

The doc was much like previous ones, but contained a total assignment of all copyrights. I thought that was over-reaching, and modified the language to read exactly like for inventions and patents "in the course of or resulting from employment". Signed and sent the form in two years ago. No probs. They won't look at it unless they want to fire me, and even then, likely will not notice because the language is totally innocuous.

Still posted as AC for obvious reasons.

So, use Greenspun's "Gang of Five" model...

[ivi]

The quoted name is my spin-off...
and - it's been a so long since I
first read about it - that I may
have the number of team members
wrong...

But the idea is something like this:

It's a business model for database-based
web system design that brings [4 or] 5
talents together to work on a stream of
projects, rotating "hats" (ie, Project
Manage, Programmer, Customer Liason,
Graphic Designer, et al.) as they move
from one project to another.

As the number of projects grows to be
more than one "Gang of [4 or] Five"
can handle, another "Gang" forms to
handle the overload.

I suppose there could be a loose coupling
between the various, independent "Gangs"
(eg, to enable "load balancing" to happen),
but they could just as well remain separate
entities & control their own destinies...
a bit like music bands.

Thus, if you control your own destiny,
you can write your own IP clauses...
to encourage members' creativity,
while still protecting Clients' rights
to their IP & sensitive business info.

I can see a contract (akin to the GPL),
- incorporating these IP terms - that
each "Gang of [4 or] Five" would find
acceptable.

Of course, I can also see a family of
such contracts (like those that have
been embraced by one or more developers
of various flavors of Open Source S/W),
that new "Gangs" could choose, accord-
ing to their &/or their current Client's
preferences & needs.

IMO this problem has an easy solution!

I do it

[setien]

I always argue whatever points I feel unfair on my contract. The last 3 jobs I have had, I have had them change that clause so it only includes what I do in my working hours.
I find that clause so completely unacceptable, and I think any workplace who would not concede to change it, are a bunch of nasty buggers anyway.
I argue that I partake in open source projects and free/shareware. That's usually ample argument.

Re:Does your webhost own your weblog?

[MonTemplar]

FWIW, I'm using Radio Userland for my weblog, and publishing it via my own domain and webspace, both supplied by 1&1 Internet here in the UK. All the content (posts, stories, pictures, etc) are held on my PC, and pushed out to the website (thankfully, I have a broadband connection) when I do updates. The other stuff (comments, trackback information) is held on the Userland 'cloud'. In theory, I should be able to transfer my weblog to a new domain and keep everything intact.

MT.

You don't have to accept it

[TheLink]

Either you walk away or:

a) Negotiate. (if you have good rapport)
OR
b) Change the contract explicitly - strike out paragraphs. (if you have good bargaining power or couldn't be bothered).
OR
c) Write a new contract that looks almost the same and use it.
(if you don't have bargaining power).

Yes. Change it to suit yourself. Print it out again make it look almost exactly the same - fonts, layout etc.

If both parties sign it, then it's agreed then. Hey they entered into it with their eyes opened right?

Just tell them you need time to think about it. Go home, pick the right fonts, similar paper and reproduce the whole thing with a few custom changes.

Remember keep a straight face, sign it, give it to them and they'll probably sign it without reading the fine print (idiots ;) ).

If they notice, well you've proven one thing to them at least:
1) you're resourceful.
2) you're one of the few who treat what they sign seriously. Not one of the sheeple.

I've successfully done a similar thing before on a so called NDA. Took me a couple of hours to retype the thing and get the font sizes right.

But let me put it this way - the new NDA didn't restrict my rights at all...

Of course in the US you might come under the DMCA for reverse engineering the contract document or some other dumb US law. But I'm not in the US.