Slashdot Mirror
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.
How did Apple find out that one of their employer's had created this?
Did he run around Apple HQ boasting about it? Seems a pretty dumb thing to do, these kinda of clauses (where employers maintain rights to your creations) seem pretty common.
Why didn't he release it under an alias?
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
...until there are a flood of posters who mistakenly assume that the headline refers to Apple trying to claim ownership of the shareware concept? Perhaps "Apple Claims Ownership of Netflix" would have been better.
Does anyone know of any simular such laws outside of california?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Why should they buy the program if they have legal grounds to believe they already own it?
In mine, they agreed to add : GPL'ed creations should remain as such.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Anyone else click this article thinking Apple was claiming a patent on shareware? Maybe I've been reading /. too long. Maybe I'm still not used to the editors deliberately allowing sensational headlines.
Nosce te Ipsum
Did you sign a contract that states that what you create belongs to your employer? If so, then they're not stealing, they're taking what rightfully belongs to them -- you're the one ripping them off.
The assumption, when you work for a company, is that you will not be attempting to compete with the company you work for. It's like doing freelance consulting in your spare time when you work for a consulting company during the day. At the very least, it's shady.
It seems like you don't want to contribute to the company you work for, you're just there for the paycheck. That's a really bad attitude.
evil adrian
Evan Brown used to work for DSC Communications and ran into the same problem.
Except in Evan's case, he had his idea before he ever went to work for DSC and until ordered by the judge, it remained an idea, not an invention. The judge ordered him to develop it for DSC without pay.
Check out Evan's web site on the issue
Does this put Apple among Big Evil Inc. conglomerate or is this OK because it's Apple?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
instead of shareware, he wouldn't be in this mess now.
I've had this once before where a previous employer caused me to pull out of a big name Open Source project because they didn't like me doing anything in my own time. Saying that, I only stayed there for a couple of months after that, as I was that pissed off with them because of it.
Unless of course you copy some idea from work and make your own version of it.
That's the worst one, and the hardest to keep away from as well. At least in my current contract I've not got that problem - most of the stuff I've done I already done before, so a good 20% of it is already mine, and open sourced as well with the CVS on sourceforge, so if something did go ary I just show them the file dates and cvs logs ;-)
Java gaming nut - http://www.retep.org/ or for the rail http://uktra.in/
I work as an independent contractor. One of the tests the IRS will use to validate independent contractor status is having more than one client at a time. Starting a few years ago all of the contracts I'd was given contained language that said everything I do belongs to them. I always cross this out and they always say the wording applies only to the work I do on their nickel.I tell them that's fine with me but it needs to be written that way. They always rewrite it in a way I'm comfortable with.
That's what I do when I'm on the job.
What I do off the job, is mine. That's the distinction between an employee and a slave, and it's not being selfish to decline being a slave.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
As an employee at a swedish university, I appreciate the swedish laws on the subject:
I own the copyright on everything, even the stuff I do at work.
I even own the patent rights if I invent anything, even if I did it within a government funded university project.
(If you receive private funding, you probably have a contractual agreement waiving some or all of your patent rights, though)
How about that?
Apple's PR department is probably just shaking their heads. Everytime the suits at Apple (Jobs?) pull a stunt like this, it probably blows a huge hole in their promotional budget.
Lets look at some simple options:
1. Offer to buy the program outright. $250,000?
2. Steal it from the creative developer probably under threat of his job, defend it in court, have it appear on Slashdot and allocate another $2.5 million for the PR budget to make us look good.
3. All the goodwill Apple was building with developers to get them to write software -- down the drain; which ultimately means fewer programs for the users.
A lot of crap seems to keep happening around the whole Sherlock program. Does someone need to be spanked? Is it Jobs who is doing this or some clueless lawyer who needs his bonus this week?
Last time, they gave an Apple Developer Design award to the guy who wrote Watson and then completely ripped his idea off the next year and gave it away in Sherlock. The bad PR and extremely negative developer feelings round that debacle was certainly not worth the money.
It continues to amaze me that Jobs will go out and buy Logic to starve out the Windows audio market, but he won't award creative development on his own platform. It's a good thing we like those nice shiny case designs.
Funny - Microsoft doesn't do this.
When I worked for them (1995-2000) the ownership of ideas was spelled out pretty clear in the terms of employment.
If I came up with something completely on my own time and didn't use any company resources then it was MINE. Spelled out in black and white.
I interviewed with Apple a year ago - they do cool stuff but the more I hear about it the less I think I'd want to work for them........
So Apple goes to the court and says "Our business is to develop software [to be used on hardware we produce]." This is pretty clear cut. I don't know anyone who would say otherwise.
At which point the judge asks the employee, "Did you develop software to be used on a Mac?"
He says "yes" and the case is closed.
I know it's 'spooky' or whatever, but this is how it is. I've written code that doesn't belong to me, and I bet zillions of other people have too.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
A better example would be Nullsoft WASTE (Released, then pulled.).
In that case, it was made clear that the author had written the software for his employers' internal use. It appeared that even though his contract didn't state "all your code are belong to us", that particular product was considered "Work For Hire" under copyright law, which means he didn't own the rights to it at all. The author had never heard of this forgettable part of copyright law, and quit in disgust.
This, however, seems like a more clear-cut case where the author's contract with his employer did not explicitly exclude software coded on his own time. It is not unreasonable for them to have such a contract. What if the software he was coding at home was directly competitive with Apple's software? Or that leveraged his insider knowledge of what Apple was working on? What if he was coding for Windows? What if he was writing an operating system that ran on PowerPC hardware and started a business selling the same? Would that not be a conflict of interests?
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
IANAL, but no employer has ever won a court case on these IP agreements, even when the software was developed for the company on company time and on company computers.
You are completely and utterly wrong. When you've reviewed the relevant caselaw (see Lexis or WestLaw), you're welcome to express an informed opinion. In the meantime, the critical factors will be to what extent Apple's time, computing resources or IP were used in the development of Netflix Fanatic.
You are an idiot too. I was not replying to your post. Go look at the reply history. In fact, I was -agreeing- with your post. Next time read the post and look at the history before opening your stupid mouth-- I was replying to rifter.
No, I am not an attorney. However in my industry background I've been extensively counseled on these subjects.
My agreement with you is subject to one caveat: the relevent section of California labor code (California is more liberal than most states on this topic) is:
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:
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
Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
This is vague and can be used to nail/inconvenience you in court.