Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Losing My Software Rights?

Posted by kdawson on from the work-for-hire-but-not-for-you dept.

vintagepc writes "Having written a piece of software as part of my research employment, I now face (and will later face again, with other software I've developed), the issue of intellectual property rights. The legal department stated that if I was paid by the University to produce the software, the University would own all rights to it. This is supposedly black and white, not a gray area. However, I was hired as a research student, not directly by the University, and also via a research award (NSERC). Furthermore, it turns out that faculty members here, in fact, retain their intellectual rights to any software they write. At this point, I can still back out, since I have not explicitly agreed to the conditions, but this decision must be made soon. So, I turn to the Slashdot community to ask: Are they allowed to completely strip my rights to the software? If anyone has had any similar experiences, then what was the outcome? Additionally, is this a normal action, or do I have some maneuvering room?"

3 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Negotiate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I hereby declare to be mandatorily used as testobject for female pleasure.
    Signed,
    yours truly
    AC

    PS: It's signed, it's the law.

  2. Re:Negotiate. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    It has to be a two way agreement. You fail.

  3. Re:Negotiate. by Zaatxe · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hey, a "+5 insightful" first post! Congratulations!

    MODDERS: please don't mod me down, I had to congratulate bluefoxlucid for this, you must agree with me that what happened here is not exactly common.

    --
    So say we all