Apple Claims Ownership of Shareware

(54)T-Dub writes "Cricket Media recently released 'Netflix Fanatic', an OSX based shareware app that lets you manage your rental queue without logging on to Netflix. An article on Think Secret reveals the reason behind it's mysterious disappearance. Apparently the developer's employer, Apple, has claimed ownership over the application's name and source code. The developer claims that under Section 2870 of the California Labor Code this is illegal. The law states that if a company has an employment agreement with provisions saying employees must assign the rights of their inventions to their employer, those sections do not apply if the employee developed it on his or her own time, without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information. Within Apple, there's unsubstantiated speculation that Apple wants to include the Netflix Fanatic code in a new version of Sherlock." Also, they're presumably not too worried with employee morale.

Comments

That's how it works...

[davidu]

I hate to say it, but that's how it works. Companies do this all the time and I'm sure apple will make it right.

Let's take the Stickies application written by Jens Alfke for example:

For a while it looked as though Apple was going to get Antler Notes / Stickies at no cost -- wotta deal! As it happened, however, some of the nice people mentioned earlier in this story arranged for me to get a bonus, not officially in any way related to Stickies of course, but it made me feel better.

You can read the whole story about how Jens wrote the stickies program as an Apple employee and had it claimed as Apple's while they made sure it was dealt with at the same time here.

-davidu

On MacSlash Last Month

[spankalee]

This was discussed a while ago on MacSlash. The author directly wrote in apparently.

Here's the link: Employer Grabs Netflix Fanatic Software From Creator

I've said it before...

[Marsala]

And I'll say it again:

Section 2870 does *NOT* protect you if you're a software developer. Check out sub section 1. It includes an exemption for the company if your invention relates at the time of conception .... to the employer's business.

The company's case against you is pretty straighforward: "We're in the business of making and selling software. Your invention is software. Hand it over."

And they don't even have to pat you on the head for writing it.

I hope homeboy has more luck trying to exert his rights under the CLC than other people who've fallen for it have had. :(

Re:code in your own time - not your own product???

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Because the boilerplate agreements that employees sign these days almost always have something in them to that effect. It's evil; it's also, in most cases, a condition of getting (or keeping) a job, and with the tech economy the way it is, most programmers will sign away the rights to their firstborn if it means getting paid enough.

I have to worry about this kind of thing all the time. I work in biotech, and am a grad student in comp. bio.; although the applications I develop for school are in a somewhat different field than those I develop for work, it's conceivable that my employer could lay claim to some of my academic work -- and, of course, that my school could lay claim to just about anything I do. By and large, I trust both my boss and my professors, but ... Does it suck? Hell yeah. Is there anything I can do about it? Not if I want a job and a degree.

Re:code in your own time - not your own product???

[IWorkForMorons]

Hell...I had one company offer me a job with the conditions that 1) anything I code, at any time, belongs to them, 2) any ideas I have, at any time, belongs to them, 3) in the event the I leave the company, I would not work in any field that competes with them for at least 2 years. The theory behind the "any time" clause was that I *might* be influenced by my work and create something using that influence, therefore it was in their best interest to claim everything. The non-competition clause is standard, but if I had taken the job then I wouldn't have been able to take any programming job for 2 years considering their software *could possibly* be used in many fields. The entire contract was written to make sure they owned you. Someone could fight a lot of it in court, but considering you wouldn't have a job it would be hard to pay for a lawyer. I pity the poor bastards that work at that place...the entire thing was family-owned and run, and they worked 12 hour days. And they expected you to keep up with them when needed, which was pretty much all the time. Some jobs just aren't worth taking, no matter how desparate you are.

Re:Are they psychic?

[Gekko]

As it has been pointed out there are exceptions to that clause.

The rest of the clause is
"
and (a) which does not relate (1) to the business of the employer or (2) to the employer's actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development, or (b) which does not result from any work performed by the employee for the employer. Any provision which purports to apply to such an invention is to that extent against the public policy of this state and is to that extent, void and unenforceable."