Losing My Software Rights?

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?"

Comments

1st

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

neener

Re:attorney - and you're probably wrong. Fail.

[Khyber]

"However, since this is the Internet, I want to take this opportunity to point out several substantial flaws in your submission."

I hate to nitpick, but when the fuck does ANY list start with 'zero' as the heading number?

Can't trust the advice of a person that fails to use the number zero in a proper manner.