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Does society accept this behaviour outside tech? Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time.

Does society accept this behaviour outside tech? Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time. Or that the big farm would ask for a piece of those carrots grown in the back yard.

maxerickson 7y ago
Lots of people are employed with an understanding that they won't compete with the employer. Google's stance is on the aggressive end of things, but that's where the California law is coming from.
- rs23296008n1 7y ago
  The problem with an aggressive stance is that the response is then likely combative as well. Google isn't alone in this. Plenty of other companies have the same clauses. They already know these clauses have consequences but they are trying to address real fears / visible threats of their own. All that said, <humor style=wry> I'm fairly sure unionisation and other reactive responses such as further government red tape wont bother them at all. </humor>
_trampeltier 7y ago
There are a lot of things different in the "real" world and the "software" world. Nobody would accept underwear with a build in camera, gps tracker and a microphone wo give the data to x companys. But with a cellphone (almost) everybody is ok. Also if something goes wrong with software, it's the customers problem. The customer accepted the contract with no rights for him (software AS IS, no warranty), nobody would accept a such contract in the "real" world.
- sidpatil 7y ago
  > The customer accepted the contract with no rights for him (software AS IS, no warranty) That's only specific to FOSS.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Specifically, it's only the case for unsupported project bits that the user doesn't pay for. Commercial FOSS products have the same sort of warranty and support as any other software product. There are some cases of of selling products without much in the way of guarantees. Something you buy on eBay AS IS is pretty much only warrantied to be as described.
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    Have you read Windows TOS ?
  - vertex-four 7y ago
    Nearly every bit of software you use has that wording in its EULA.
ulfw 7y ago
Wait on earth would a Michelin restaurant be able to ‚claim copyright‘ on what one of their chefs does in his free time? As long as said cook doesn‘t say „Michelin star chef from Restaurant X is offering you this dish‘ (which would possibly be a trademark issue, but still not copyright) I don‘t see how this could possibly be forbidden. Everybody is allowed to have more than one job if they please. It‘s just that software ‚creations‘ outside of work are trying to be owned by the (main) employer company.
- aliceryhl 7y ago
  I mean, the restaurant claiming copyright on e.g. recipies is the same situation as whatever is going on here.
  - ldoughty 7y ago
    You can't copyright (in the US) a recipe, but the recipe might be considered a trade secret, which effectively can be treated similarly
- brainwad 7y ago
  > Everybody is allowed to have more than one job if they please. In my country, it's generally illegal to work for a company also work for a competitor. It's a breach of the duty of loyalty to your employer.
  - ldoughty 7y ago
    It's also that way in the US, but this is going a step further.... Many US employers require you to disclose your side projects (even those you start before joining them). My current employer requires I also tell them of any other business entities I have a relationship with (even unrelated to my job). This then informs them of what IP/consulting fees they can go after if they want to. This is essentially what the Russian Rambler / Nginx issue is claiming to. It's not fair, just another big corporate overreach because employees have, in the past, made products that might complete, or using work-related IP (including consulting, which leverages work-related knowledge), or using work equipment... and corps lobbied and litigated to essentially soften any defense an employee can claim to retain ownership
itronitron 7y ago
This is common behavior in any business or industry that protects its interests via intellectual property. Monsanto comes to mind with your big farm reference.
akuji1993 7y ago
This is mostly a US thing. If I don't implement a DIRECT competitor to my company in my free time, the company can do absolutely nothing about it here. IF I implement a competitor and put it on the market, they can fire me. They can't however, sue me for the posession of the software. That's just a legal nightmare in the US.
- pinkfoot 7y ago
  Where is 'here'? Curious
  - keiferski 7y ago
    Post history indicates Germany.
    - Xylakant 7y ago
      The situation in Germany about ownership of stuff you developed in your company or spare time is substantially more nuanced than the GGP post describes. Matters get even more complicated when remote work and trust based working hours (aka: no time tracking) gets in the mix. Add permission to work on OSS in your working hours: Was that code done on company time or not? There's an entire law about inventions made in your on and off time - the "Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen". It does cover inventions (patents or similar) that are related to your work, whether done during your work time or outside. (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__4.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__4.html) The law stipulates compensation and there's a separate set of compensation guidelines that takes into account how related to your work this invention is. An employer can even claim right of first buy for inventions that are unrelated to the employees work (freie Erfindung), if the employer is active in the area of business that the invention covers (see https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__19.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__19.html) Mind you, this is by law. Many employment contracts will only mention this in passing or not at all. Now, most contributions to open source will not pass the bar to be an invention in the sense of the law. But if you come up with a novel solution for a hard problem, that might cross the boundaries.
claudeganon 7y ago
Animation studios will try and make you sign contracts that say they own anything and everything you pitch to them, regardless of whether they pick it up. You can get around this or have the contracts modified if you have good representation, but most artists don’t or can’t afford to. I also know for a fact that studios use these clauses to mine and steal ideas from struggling artists. IMO, America is far too biased overall towards employer versus employee rights and this is a problem in a lot of fields.
martin-adams 7y ago
Intellectual Property and Copyright aren't quite the same thing. The IP is the idea, whereas the copyright is the specific recipe. So in my mind, the equivalent would be using your learned cooking skills for another restaurant while working at a Michelin restaurant. They both serve food (competing or related industry), but while the dishes are different, the techniques to create them come from the same source. I wouldn't expect a Michelin restaurant to stop someone cooking in their spare time, just that they can't copy their exact dishes in part or full and compete with them.
- mcv 7y ago
  Intellectual Property isn't really a thing in itself. It's a vague collection of a couple of different concepts, including Copyright, Patents and Trademarks. Those are three very different kinds of temporary monopolies granted by the government, but the people who promote the phrase "intellectual property" want them to be considered as not a government-granted monopoly on a certain kind of business, but as a natural form of property comparable to physical property, which it really isn't.
  - smichel17 7y ago
    Perhaps we could try to rebrand IP as "Innovation Protections"?
    - anticensor 7y ago
      Good idea but will not pass the parliementarians.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    "Property" isn't natural. It's defined by law.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > Intellectual Property and Copyright aren't quite the same thing. The IP is the idea, whereas the copyright is the specific recipe. No. Intellectual property is property. One cannot "own" an idea, but one can own a copyright; copyright (along with trademark and patent) is a form of IP.
tyingq 7y ago
"Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time." Not a Michelin restaurant, but apparently Outback Steakhouse makes that exact claim. "Inventions, Ideas, Processes, and Designs. All inventions, ideas, recipes, processes, programs, software, and designs ...conceived or made by Employee during the course of Employee’s employment with the Employer (whether or not actually conceived during regular business hours) and for a period..." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874691/000119312508109842/dex1016.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874691/0001193125081...
- powvans 7y ago
  "WHEREAS, the Employee desires, on the terms and conditions stated herein, to be employed by the Employer as President." Seems reasonable for the President of the company. Do they make waiters and line cooks sign a similar contract?
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Those contracts aren't public. My guess is yes for "head chef" or similar, because why would you put the word "recipe" in a President's contract? That boilerplate came from somewhere else.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  That's slavery with extra steps...
- bpicolo 7y ago
  I'm partially unclear on how this affects either party. Recipes are explicitly not copyrightable. "Ideas" also seem like an unprotected asset outside of specific NDAs.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    Maybe just as a "trade secret" that you're not allowed to share outside the company. (Edit, yes...there's an NDA section that calls out recipies)
astura 7y ago
Yes this is extremely common outside of "tech." Almost all large employers will make all employees (even the janitor) sign an ownership of inventions agreement as a condition of employment. Here's an example of such an agreement from a pharmaceutical company I found (section 2.3 and 2.4): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1245104/000119312512304855/d358280dex1018.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1245104/000119312512... See also: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... for an explanation of why this is.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Pharmaceuticals are tech. The only non tech IP industries are things like art.
- mkopinsky 7y ago
  I've now had two long-term jobs at large employers, both hospital systems, neither made me sign an IP agreement of any sort. On the university side there absolutely are provisions with faculty in terms of IP ownership. But for hospital employees, it just isn't a consideration. They're not in the IP business, they're in healthcare.
willart4food 7y ago
Yes it happens outside tech too. It happens in the food business, manufacturing, industrial design; everywhere companies employ people to produce IP.
oweiler 7y ago
In Germany this isn't even a thing.
- lnsru 7y ago
  Have you tried it? One still has “Anzeigepflicht des Arbeitnehmers” (duty to report). And then your boss has a right to forbid your activity. It is a very thing in Germany.
  - mosselman 7y ago
    I have no knowledge of this, I am reacting purely to your comment and the Twitter thread: But 'duty to report' is not the same as 'everything you do is ours'. The duty to report sounds more like "you are not allowed to have another job next to this one unless you get approval". Which in some cases is logical: an employer wants you to be on your A-game, but if you work 2 other jobs you might be tired all day and not deliver any good work.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - maze-le 7y ago
    Have you? This is only relevant if your invention is in direct competition to the business at hand.
    - lnsru 7y ago
      I am building electrical measurement equipment daily and tried to sell couple peripherals for Raspberry Pi as side project. The stupid thing is, that you don’t decide what’s in direct competition. That decides a lawyer and I got rejection since both were electrical systems :-))
      - maze-le 7y ago
        Sorry to hear that. That's seriously fucked up, and I am almost sure that it wouldn't stand in court >> that you don’t decide what’s in direct competition. That decides a lawyer No. If in doubt a court decides it, not an encroaching law department -- but nobody wants that to happen so everyone silences themselves beforehand... Just one more reason for me never to be employed by a company with more than 150 employees
workthrowaway 7y ago
yep, it's accepted in other fields. the craziest for me has to be the music/sound industry. you could spend months coming up with the right chords just to have some big label or famous person you don't have any relationship with come after you. this is recent but in design, i read that companies can now own branding colors and themes.
paulcole 7y ago
After reading this, a fun exercise is to imagine you’ve stumbled onto RN, Restaurant News, and found a comment saying, > Does society accept this behavior outside of the restaurant world? Imagine Google claiming copyright on a website made during an employee’s spare time.
microcolonel 7y ago
Food is ineligible for copyright, in any event. This is the default for employed persons in Canada, to some extent: anything you publish could be considered the property of your employer. In the U.S. I believe this is typically done by agreement, and most companies include it in employment contracts, that I've seen. The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employees, Google seems to be scheduling all the betrayal into one year, maybe so they don't have to address all of it properly.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  > The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employees Huh? This has been a company policy of theirs for a long time. OP’s post is not about recent actions.
Spooky23 7y ago
For intellectual property yes. If you invent a new hybrid carrot, your seed maker employer would probably claim that. Physical property is very different. Your employer cannot claim your carrot or tomato crop in your home garden. Ultimately, you’re better off with terms like this if you’re working with a big company. If you have permission to do a side project, your are without risk. If you don’t, or your employer doesn’t have a clear policy, there is always the risk that they’ll come out of the woodwork and claim some piece of the action.
kendallpark 7y ago
> Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time. Recipes are not copyrightable in the US. [1] Otherwise, you might see exactly this. [1] https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html

maxerickson 7y ago

Lots of people are employed with an understanding that they won't compete with the employer. Google's stance is on the aggressive end of things, but that's where the California law is coming from.

rs23296008n1 7y ago
The problem with an aggressive stance is that the response is then likely combative as well. Google isn't alone in this. Plenty of other companies have the same clauses. They already know these clauses have consequences but they are trying to address real fears / visible threats of their own. All that said, <humor style=wry> I'm fairly sure unionisation and other reactive responses such as further government red tape wont bother them at all. </humor>

_trampeltier 7y ago

There are a lot of things different in the "real" world and the "software" world. Nobody would accept underwear with a build in camera, gps tracker and a microphone wo give the data to x companys. But with a cellphone (almost) everybody is ok. Also if something goes wrong with software, it's the customers problem. The customer accepted the contract with no rights for him (software AS IS, no warranty), nobody would accept a such contract in the "real" world.

sidpatil 7y ago
> The customer accepted the contract with no rights for him (software AS IS, no warranty) That's only specific to FOSS.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Specifically, it's only the case for unsupported project bits that the user doesn't pay for. Commercial FOSS products have the same sort of warranty and support as any other software product. There are some cases of of selling products without much in the way of guarantees. Something you buy on eBay AS IS is pretty much only warrantied to be as described.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  Have you read Windows TOS ?
- vertex-four 7y ago
  Nearly every bit of software you use has that wording in its EULA.

ulfw 7y ago

Wait on earth would a Michelin restaurant be able to ‚claim copyright‘ on what one of their chefs does in his free time? As long as said cook doesn‘t say „Michelin star chef from Restaurant X is offering you this dish‘ (which would possibly be a trademark issue, but still not copyright) I don‘t see how this could possibly be forbidden. Everybody is allowed to have more than one job if they please. It‘s just that software ‚creations‘ outside of work are trying to be owned by the (main) employer company.

aliceryhl 7y ago
I mean, the restaurant claiming copyright on e.g. recipies is the same situation as whatever is going on here.
- ldoughty 7y ago
  You can't copyright (in the US) a recipe, but the recipe might be considered a trade secret, which effectively can be treated similarly
brainwad 7y ago
> Everybody is allowed to have more than one job if they please. In my country, it's generally illegal to work for a company also work for a competitor. It's a breach of the duty of loyalty to your employer.
- ldoughty 7y ago
  It's also that way in the US, but this is going a step further.... Many US employers require you to disclose your side projects (even those you start before joining them). My current employer requires I also tell them of any other business entities I have a relationship with (even unrelated to my job). This then informs them of what IP/consulting fees they can go after if they want to. This is essentially what the Russian Rambler / Nginx issue is claiming to. It's not fair, just another big corporate overreach because employees have, in the past, made products that might complete, or using work-related IP (including consulting, which leverages work-related knowledge), or using work equipment... and corps lobbied and litigated to essentially soften any defense an employee can claim to retain ownership

itronitron 7y ago

This is common behavior in any business or industry that protects its interests via intellectual property. Monsanto comes to mind with your big farm reference.

akuji1993 7y ago

This is mostly a US thing. If I don't implement a DIRECT competitor to my company in my free time, the company can do absolutely nothing about it here. IF I implement a competitor and put it on the market, they can fire me. They can't however, sue me for the posession of the software. That's just a legal nightmare in the US.

pinkfoot 7y ago
Where is 'here'? Curious
- keiferski 7y ago
  Post history indicates Germany.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    The situation in Germany about ownership of stuff you developed in your company or spare time is substantially more nuanced than the GGP post describes. Matters get even more complicated when remote work and trust based working hours (aka: no time tracking) gets in the mix. Add permission to work on OSS in your working hours: Was that code done on company time or not? There's an entire law about inventions made in your on and off time - the "Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen". It does cover inventions (patents or similar) that are related to your work, whether done during your work time or outside. (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__4.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__4.html) The law stipulates compensation and there's a separate set of compensation guidelines that takes into account how related to your work this invention is. An employer can even claim right of first buy for inventions that are unrelated to the employees work (freie Erfindung), if the employer is active in the area of business that the invention covers (see https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__19.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__19.html) Mind you, this is by law. Many employment contracts will only mention this in passing or not at all. Now, most contributions to open source will not pass the bar to be an invention in the sense of the law. But if you come up with a novel solution for a hard problem, that might cross the boundaries.

claudeganon 7y ago

Animation studios will try and make you sign contracts that say they own anything and everything you pitch to them, regardless of whether they pick it up. You can get around this or have the contracts modified if you have good representation, but most artists don’t or can’t afford to. I also know for a fact that studios use these clauses to mine and steal ideas from struggling artists. IMO, America is far too biased overall towards employer versus employee rights and this is a problem in a lot of fields.

martin-adams 7y ago

Intellectual Property and Copyright aren't quite the same thing. The IP is the idea, whereas the copyright is the specific recipe. So in my mind, the equivalent would be using your learned cooking skills for another restaurant while working at a Michelin restaurant. They both serve food (competing or related industry), but while the dishes are different, the techniques to create them come from the same source. I wouldn't expect a Michelin restaurant to stop someone cooking in their spare time, just that they can't copy their exact dishes in part or full and compete with them.

mcv 7y ago
Intellectual Property isn't really a thing in itself. It's a vague collection of a couple of different concepts, including Copyright, Patents and Trademarks. Those are three very different kinds of temporary monopolies granted by the government, but the people who promote the phrase "intellectual property" want them to be considered as not a government-granted monopoly on a certain kind of business, but as a natural form of property comparable to physical property, which it really isn't.
- smichel17 7y ago
  Perhaps we could try to rebrand IP as "Innovation Protections"?
  - anticensor 7y ago
    Good idea but will not pass the parliementarians.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  "Property" isn't natural. It's defined by law.
nordsieck 7y ago
> Intellectual Property and Copyright aren't quite the same thing. The IP is the idea, whereas the copyright is the specific recipe. No. Intellectual property is property. One cannot "own" an idea, but one can own a copyright; copyright (along with trademark and patent) is a form of IP.

tyingq 7y ago

"Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time." Not a Michelin restaurant, but apparently Outback Steakhouse makes that exact claim. "Inventions, Ideas, Processes, and Designs. All inventions, ideas, recipes, processes, programs, software, and designs ...conceived or made by Employee during the course of Employee’s employment with the Employer (whether or not actually conceived during regular business hours) and for a period..." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874691/000119312508109842/dex1016.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874691/0001193125081...

powvans 7y ago
"WHEREAS, the Employee desires, on the terms and conditions stated herein, to be employed by the Employer as President." Seems reasonable for the President of the company. Do they make waiters and line cooks sign a similar contract?
- tyingq 7y ago
  Those contracts aren't public. My guess is yes for "head chef" or similar, because why would you put the word "recipe" in a President's contract? That boilerplate came from somewhere else.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
That's slavery with extra steps...
bpicolo 7y ago
I'm partially unclear on how this affects either party. Recipes are explicitly not copyrightable. "Ideas" also seem like an unprotected asset outside of specific NDAs.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Maybe just as a "trade secret" that you're not allowed to share outside the company. (Edit, yes...there's an NDA section that calls out recipies)

astura 7y ago

Yes this is extremely common outside of "tech." Almost all large employers will make all employees (even the janitor) sign an ownership of inventions agreement as a condition of employment. Here's an example of such an agreement from a pharmaceutical company I found (section 2.3 and 2.4): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1245104/000119312512304855/d358280dex1018.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1245104/000119312512... See also: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... for an explanation of why this is.

lonelappde 7y ago
Pharmaceuticals are tech. The only non tech IP industries are things like art.
mkopinsky 7y ago
I've now had two long-term jobs at large employers, both hospital systems, neither made me sign an IP agreement of any sort. On the university side there absolutely are provisions with faculty in terms of IP ownership. But for hospital employees, it just isn't a consideration. They're not in the IP business, they're in healthcare.

willart4food 7y ago

Yes it happens outside tech too. It happens in the food business, manufacturing, industrial design; everywhere companies employ people to produce IP.

oweiler 7y ago

In Germany this isn't even a thing.

lnsru 7y ago
Have you tried it? One still has “Anzeigepflicht des Arbeitnehmers” (duty to report). And then your boss has a right to forbid your activity. It is a very thing in Germany.
- mosselman 7y ago
  I have no knowledge of this, I am reacting purely to your comment and the Twitter thread: But 'duty to report' is not the same as 'everything you do is ours'. The duty to report sounds more like "you are not allowed to have another job next to this one unless you get approval". Which in some cases is logical: an employer wants you to be on your A-game, but if you work 2 other jobs you might be tired all day and not deliver any good work.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- maze-le 7y ago
  Have you? This is only relevant if your invention is in direct competition to the business at hand.
  - lnsru 7y ago
    I am building electrical measurement equipment daily and tried to sell couple peripherals for Raspberry Pi as side project. The stupid thing is, that you don’t decide what’s in direct competition. That decides a lawyer and I got rejection since both were electrical systems :-))
    - maze-le 7y ago
      Sorry to hear that. That's seriously fucked up, and I am almost sure that it wouldn't stand in court >> that you don’t decide what’s in direct competition. That decides a lawyer No. If in doubt a court decides it, not an encroaching law department -- but nobody wants that to happen so everyone silences themselves beforehand... Just one more reason for me never to be employed by a company with more than 150 employees

workthrowaway 7y ago

yep, it's accepted in other fields. the craziest for me has to be the music/sound industry. you could spend months coming up with the right chords just to have some big label or famous person you don't have any relationship with come after you. this is recent but in design, i read that companies can now own branding colors and themes.

paulcole 7y ago

After reading this, a fun exercise is to imagine you’ve stumbled onto RN, Restaurant News, and found a comment saying, > Does society accept this behavior outside of the restaurant world? Imagine Google claiming copyright on a website made during an employee’s spare time.

microcolonel 7y ago

Food is ineligible for copyright, in any event. This is the default for employed persons in Canada, to some extent: anything you publish could be considered the property of your employer. In the U.S. I believe this is typically done by agreement, and most companies include it in employment contracts, that I've seen. The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employees, Google seems to be scheduling all the betrayal into one year, maybe so they don't have to address all of it properly.

jsjohnst 7y ago
> The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employees Huh? This has been a company policy of theirs for a long time. OP’s post is not about recent actions.

Spooky23 7y ago

For intellectual property yes. If you invent a new hybrid carrot, your seed maker employer would probably claim that. Physical property is very different. Your employer cannot claim your carrot or tomato crop in your home garden. Ultimately, you’re better off with terms like this if you’re working with a big company. If you have permission to do a side project, your are without risk. If you don’t, or your employer doesn’t have a clear policy, there is always the risk that they’ll come out of the woodwork and claim some piece of the action.

kendallpark 7y ago

> Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time. Recipes are not copyrightable in the US. [1] Otherwise, you might see exactly this. [1] https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-protect.html