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

Law?

[LarryRiedel]

I work in california.us, where we have laws about this kind of thing, for example:

2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides
that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her
rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an
invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time
without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or
trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of
the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably
anticipated research or development of the employer; or
(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the
employer.
(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports
to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from
being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision
is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.

2871. No employer shall require a provision made void and
unenforceable by Section 2870 as a condition of employment or
continued employment. Nothing in this article shall be construed to
forbid or restrict the right of an employer to provide in contracts
of employment for disclosure, provided that any such disclosures be
received in confidence, of all of the employee's inventions made
solely or jointly with others during the term of his or her
employment, a review process by the employer to determine such issues
as may arise, and for full title to certain patents and inventions
to be in the United States, as required by contracts between the
employer and the United States or any of its agencies.

Larry