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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?
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
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.
I work in california.us, where we have laws about this kind of thing, for example:
Larry
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.
My experience was at the American Red Cross. I was responsible for maintaining our local list of ineligible blood donors (positive infectious disease test results and the like). One day, everyone in the place was presented with a new "employment agreement" which we were supposed to sign. One of the provisions indicated just what is described in this story; specifically, anything I happened to create, invent, design, etc. - whether during work hours or not - belonged to the American Red Cross unless they decided to relinquish those rights. Now, I'm no kind of inventor but I was 23 years old with few responsibilities beyond myself and so I was the perfect person to protest this agreement on pure principle. I adamantly refused to sign the paper because I felt that it gave too much power over my life to my employer, not to mention the fact that a non-profit corporation specializing in disaster relief and blood collection/distribution shouldn't have an interest in anything that I create (assuming it has nothing to do with disaster relief, blood collection, etc.).
At first, I was told that if I didn't sign the paper I was risking the loss of my job. I maintained that this was a chance I was willing to take (and encouraged others to do the same). About a month later, the new employment agreement was revised into a more palatable format. Though I can't recall if it specified inventions/creations relating specifically to my employment or if the clause was taken out completely, the document was acceptable and I signed.
My advice is pretty simple: Check your state/local laws - as in a post above, an overly restrictive clause of this nature could be invalid on its face. If it IS valid, then you have to decide if a) you're willing (and financially able) to leave the job on principle to hopefully find one where you're not forced to sign such an odious document, b) you're going to create/design/invent something in which your company would want to claim an interest or c) you know you're not going to create something that you will want to sell (or release, a la open source) to which you could lose your rights. After all, while a company could theoretically lay claim to, for example, your David Hasselhoff fan site, they probably won't. On the other hand, if you create brand new database software in your free time while working for [any] software company, they could potentially strip it from you and from anyone else to whom you have given or sold it.
At the risk of going too long, remember too that Steve Wozniak worked for HP when he created the Apple computer. He offered it to them because as part of his contract he was required to do so. They had no interest at all, which I'm sure they regretted for a long time.
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 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.
Give me liberty or give me kill -s 9
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.
-MT.
In most places such clauses carry no legal weight at all anyways, since you just can't sign some rights away(to avoid slavery&etc). Sure, the employer owns rights to stuff you do for them...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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.