4 ms·

I have started working for a big international company only recently and was quite surprised to learn that the clause "we own all IP you produce at any time inc

• s_gourichon 6y ago
  (I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, just a forum conversation where I tell what I believe: "as far as I know", etc.) What country is this? Here in France, your employer may only complain if they can argue that your activity causes them harm. Side projects, even when benefiting from your work experience, should, as far as I know, be okay.
  • shmel 6y ago
    It is the UK. I know that probably in some jurisdictions some of these clauses are unenforceable. I just don't want to step in a legal mess. I know a friend of mine (in France btw) had to argue with his company about this even though he obtained a verbal agreement beforehand. It is just that he was about to quit and the employer decided to fuck with him as much as possible.
    • cnity 6y ago
      Are you sure? The line "in the course of your employment" is often misinterpreted to mean "while hired here". In fact it means something like "while doing something that is specifically required to do your job properly"[0] [0]: Australian site, but relevant: https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/protecting-business/ip-kit/browse-ip-topics/ownership-of-intellectual-property-created-by-your-employees-and-contractors-or-consultants/ownership#:~:text=As%20a%20general%20rule%2C%20an,the%20employee%2C%20not%20the%20employer https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/protecting-....
      • shmel 6y ago
        yes. My contract clarifies clearly "whether or not during working hours, whether or not using company's equipment". It could be difficult to enforce, but I wouldn't want to check.
        • cnity 6y ago
          Yes, but does it say "in the course of your employment"? The "whether or not during working hours/using company's equipment" part just covers the case where you are working late, etc. If your contract contains the phrase "in the course of your employment", then you can still work on a hobby project and it remains yours, because you didn't work on the hobby project "in the course of your employment" (you were not asked to build the hobby project)
    • C1sc0cat 6y ago
      Pretty much every jurisdiction will have some law about this. A lot of labour law is derived from "Master and Servant" Laws.
    • DoingIsLearning 6y ago
      (not legal advice but) I am pretty sure that employment contract 'IP clauses' in the UK can only capture provisions within your employee 'duties'. So if for example you work in R&D for a trading algo fin-tech company, the company has no say in any 'Image Processing' IP you produce out-of-office if you wanted to contribute to ffmpeg or similar projects.
      • gryn 6y ago
        In France at least, that point is kinda moot. most of the companies hiring (SSIIs) are contracting body shops that have no specific specialization, so the company's field of work is just 'engineering' or IT / computer science.
  • vladvasiliu 6y ago
    I have a friend working in France for a software company and his contract does have something along the lines of "everything you do belongs to us". He's not big on side projects so he never gave it much thought, but I really wonder how enforceable this would be in court.
    • C1sc0cat 6y ago
      If you can afford the lawyers.
      • vladvasiliu 6y ago
        I think that's the whole point of those clauses: scare the people. In France, from what I understand, there's a special court for employment issues. I'm not sure if you need a lawyer for those, but it's supposed to be easy to take your employer to this court. However, even so, except in case of something pretty extreme, I'd prefer not having to deal with that. But then I guess this could be used a signal that the company is into playing games and maybe look elsewhere. Especially when they're reassuring orally but wouldn't put any change in writing.
  • C1sc0cat 6y ago
    The rule of thumb that if your side project is "related" to your employers work - its theirs - the problem is can you afford the layers to assert that right. For example If you are an semipro musician and you wrote your countries Eurovision entry they would have no claim on that.
• cnorthwood 6y ago
  These are fairly common clauses. I've normally found that asking your manager for permission to work on a side project is sufficient to waive the appropriate rights and most will agree (I wrote a tech book with a similar clause in my contract and got permission from my manager to do so). If not, it's the kind of thing a union can help you with if you're a member.
• rozenmd 6y ago
  In the past I've explicitly had this clause written out of my contracts. Worst case I've had a potential employer walk away from interviewing after I mentioned my side projects.
• toyg 6y ago
  > How do other devs deal with this? Most people don't care, because the intersection of their personal projects and anything related to the business they work for is basically non-existent (your average corp won't care about your cool database of Marvel comics). That plus the difficulty in enforcement and the fact that European copyright laws tend to protect individuals (in the UK, for example, as long as you assert copyright you get moral rights that cannot be reassigned and are harder to waive), usually result in people not caring too much about that clause. Smart employers will just use non-compete clauses to simply let you free to do what you want as long as it's not in their area of business. I argued for this with my current employer at hiring time and they had no big qualms with making a slight change to allow for that. This said, if your personal and professional projects do in fact overlap significantly, then you should raise the issue with your employer during the hiring process, because that's much more of a minefield.
• bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  My price is already quite high, if someone were to give me that contract they would need to pay me at least 2000 euro more a month above that price.
• eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  Clauses in contracts are there to be debated and bargained. I had the clause reversed to explicitly give me ownership of personal projects and ideas.
• arpinum 6y ago
  I instruct HR to give developers a letter clarifying the statement "In the course of your employment" to not include original software written without the assistance of company materials and outside of company hours.
• noobermin 6y ago
  Lovely isn't it? People will wax poetic about what makes a "10x" engineer (like this post) but once they nab you, they do everything they can to stifle the very thing they claim they hired you on.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • IncRnd 6y ago
    It's terrible when the company tries to steal the personal work of an employee. However, look at the issue from the standpoint of the employer. Why should they allow people to work at the company for a time, then startup a competitor with the information they learned from the first company?
    • Shared404 6y ago
      It seems like this is standard practice in other industries though. For example, I used to work at a pizza place. What's to stop me from taking what I learned there and starting a competitor? I also have a friend who worked at a carpenter's shop. What's to stop him from doing the same there?
• peterburkimsher 6y ago
  A senior manager at Google in Taipei approached me on Hacker News to have an "informal chat" and was pressuring me to interview there, saying he would put in a good word. I declined to apply, partly because of this side project issue. My side projects don't even get users. I just can't bear to be forbidden from doing something I enjoy (writing code), just because I also do that same thing I enjoy for someone else several hours a day. To me, it seems like an overly attached girlfriend/boyfriend. The lack of trust just puts a damper on the relationship.
  • iamstupidsimple 6y ago
    FWIW Google is very liberal on copyright release: https://opensource.google/docs/iarc/ https://opensource.google/docs/iarc/
• rikroots 6y ago
  I managed to get a verbal assurance from my MD that they wouldn't try to claim the IP for my side projects. Even so, when invited to use my JS canvas library on a client's project, I chose not to do so - just in case.
• joshvm 6y ago
  Philosophical question - if you code in private and never release it, do you care? Is this for personal fun, or are you portfolio building? The problem is usually when you want to assert copyright, not that you can't do side projects at all. Would you care if the company owned the copyright? That's an interesting way around it. I was able to explore some very cool projects at a previous company simply because I enjoyed the job and I had a lot of respect for the business. I would rather they had the IP and could actually do something useful with it. Other ways around it - STEM and outreach, summer-of-code type things? Most companies are happy for employees to do that kind of work. Lots of technical employees write books as well. Else you go the legal route and hope that your project is orthogonal enough that you can get it approved. Or you declare it all on your IP declaration prior to starting, and accept you might need to wait until you leave to start working on it.
  • shmel 6y ago
    in the context of this topic I am talking about evaluating people by github projects, so coding in private defeats the purpose. I can totally understand why companies look at github code. However, if I am looking for a new job, I may want to put something new there so it looks more appealing (now I have bunch of student code). However, it looks like legally I can't. I guess you could call it portfolio building, but I personally don't see my GH as portfolio.
    • joshvm 6y ago
      The legal situation is ultimately whatever your company signs off on. If you get approval - which may take some bureaucracy - then you're off the hook. There will be limits on what you can work on, and it might have to be nothing to do with your job. You mention arguing with the legal department, so perhaps it's challenging where you work and I don't want to assume there. However you lose nothing from engaging with them and asking - it's possibly something to ask your line manager about, though obviously don't say you're doing it because you want to look good in the job market! If this is purely within the context of job applications - I would ask, does it actually matter? Any sane hiring manager will understand the constraints that you're under with your current employer. At the end of the day if they refuse to look at your application because you don't have repositories on GitHub (and they don't appeal to reason), then there isn't anything you can do about it. Job requirements are usually flexible and you'll probably find that a reputable company on your CV, a solid cover letter and references goes a long way. Usually you can persuade your way around things like not having an active Github profile. Within the context of doing projects for their own sake (i.e. fun and learning), having this restriction is a trade-off of working at a large organisation. I suggested a number of ways which you could explore that scratches both itches.
• deleted 6y ago
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• ErrantX 6y ago
  Always negotiate this clause out. I see a lot of people saying "it's fine" or they have a verbal agreement. 99% of the time that work's fine. Its unlikely anyone's side projects will be "valuable"[1] enough for your company to try and assert some control. Say 0.1% of the time you have the next million dollar idea. No, the issue people will more likely face is: The Company effectively can stifle you. They wanted you for those side projects, but how about that performance review where your manager is talking about all that "distraction" and reminding you of this clause - ownership means control don't forget, and if the own the IP then technically they can shut you down.... I hate this clause because it is effectively a company asserting its right to your private life. The same as the clause stating they can change your working hours at any time for any reason (also negotiate this one to something reasonable; to something like 30 days written notice with justification). Trendy companies spend a lot of time talking about work-life balance and such like then shove "standard" clauses like this into contracts... 1. I use the term valuable lightly, because everyone's work is valuable!
  • 737maxtw 6y ago
    I've never worked at a company which spoke about work-life balance that did not mean 'work is the balance of your life'.
  • Shared404 6y ago
    > everyone's work is valuable! Clearly you haven't seen my code :)
• IncRnd 6y ago
  You have to declare or be able to clearly document what is yours at the time of being hired. You also must keep work and personal separate by 110% without the slightest comingling. If there is no dependency between the two, one cannot claw the other - at least not in the jurisdictions I frequent.