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It's hard to imagine moving away from California and its moonlighting law. With it, I own everything I conceive of and work on during my own time, as long as i
by 762236 6y ago
It's hard to imagine moving away from California and its moonlighting law. With it, I own everything I conceive of and work on during my own time, as long as it doesn't conflict with what I do at work. I'd imagine that if you relocated here (your company probably has an office in Silicon Valley), many of your restrictions would be lifted.
- saagarjha 6y agoI worked for a large company in California and the law prevented me from doing just about anything because it could be plausibly construed as conflicting with the company's business.
- gnopgnip 6y agoThe law is much more favorable to employees, and the legal definition of conflict of interest is more narrow than the company would like you to believe.
- saagarjha 6y agoOh, I'm sure it is. The problem is that they could sue me anyways.
- pas 6y agoThat can happen any time anyway. But they would have to show damages. And even though you'd be on the hook for legal fees - at least initially, defending such a simple civil suit isn't that big of a deal financially. Or ... just do open source under an alias.
- codemac 6y agoAgreed, they'hen I looked into something similar I found that while companies will fight tooth and nail to not sign away rights to a specific idea/effort, the law is very much on the employee's side as long as you don't use corporate equipment to do it.
- codemac 6y agoAgreed, they're trying to scare folks. When I looked into something similar I found that while companies will fight tooth and nail to not sign away rights to a specific idea/effort, the law is very much on the employee's side as long as you don't use corporate equipment to do it.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThere are three issues here intermingled. 1) Competing with your current company while moonlighting. 2) Leaving your current company and using any knowledge you gained there against them. 3) Leaving your current company and using your skill set at an unrelated company. Contracts forbidding 1 & 2 are usually defensible both morally and legally. It’s 3 where the metaphorical water gets murky, since overly broad contracts of this type basically deny workers the ability to work and earn money for the duration of the noncompete, if enforced.
- dylan604 6y agoA company in California that I worked for allowed me to list all side projects that I was working on to exempt them from the "we own your brain" type of paperwork. This allowed be to continue those projects. However, any new projects would be subject to company ownership.
- NotSammyHagar 6y agoI am not a lawyer, but it is my understanding that in california even though your contract might give you permission to own what you do, you do own it regardless if you do it in your own time. that's the common understanding.
- asdff 6y agoJeez I would list 300 things with nondescript names even if I had no side projects to get around that ridiculous rule.