3 ms·

There's a lot of answers stating that if the code was written by an employee during work hours, it's automatically owned by the company. Is that true? My unders

by bhaney 3y ago

There's a lot of answers stating that if the code was written by an employee during work hours, it's automatically owned by the company. Is that true? My understanding is the author would still retain copyright unless they've already entered into an agreement with their employer that anything they build during work hours is owned by the company. That kind of thing is pretty standard in employment agreements for software engineers, but for warehouse workers?

swatcoder 3y ago
If it was written on site during work hours to facilitate assigned work, it'd be uphill battle to argue it wasn't work peformed for the employer.
- mirashii 3y ago
  However copyright assignment still defaults to the creator, so it's still worth asking whether there were IP assignment clauses in the employment contract.
  - jeromegv 3y ago
    The creator in that case is the company. It defaults to them.
    - NSMutableSet 3y ago
      In California, it depends on whether you used equipment that belonged to your employer or not. In this case, a computer.
      - mbreese 3y ago
        Not just a computer... equipment could be anything needed in the course of developing -- or testing -- the software. I'm thinking of something like a warehouse management tool and you interfaced with a barcode reader or something like that.
      - nox101 3y ago
        You're also legally bound not to compete with your company. You can't work for Google and build a search engine "on your own time". you can't work for Nintendo and make a game on the side. What it means to compete will be decided by judges and lawyers in the gray areas but probably not hard to imagine clearly problem areas and likely not problem areas. If you want to know for sure, ask a lawyer and get a contract/letter from your employer to clarify.
    - Zambyte 3y ago
      Companies don't make things. People make things.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - reaperman 3y ago
    You're quite wrong about copyright assignment as it pertains to "works for hire". > If a work is made for hire, the employer or the party that specially ordered or commissioned that work is the initial owner of the copyright in the work unless the employer or the commissioning party has signed a written agreement to the contrary with the work's creator. For legal purposes, when a work is a “work made for hire,” the author is not the individual who actually created the work. Instead, the party that hired the individual is considered both the author and the copyright owner of the work. I fail to see how doing this during hours you are paid by the company, on their equipment, and for their specific operations...wouldn't be considered a "work for hire" in copyright law.[0] The VAST majority of work done by salaried professionals during work hours, at work, which can even remotely be demonstrated to benefit the employer...is a "work for hire". IP assignment agreements are redundant, and mostly only "needed" to prevent employees from trying to claim they did it all after hours, outside of work, using zero inside information they knew from working their day job. It's generally trivially easy to show that some of the development occurred during work, on work computers, at work, using inside knowledge of the company (trade secrets). > Section 101 of the Copyright Act defines a “work made for hire” as A) A work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment, or B) A work specially ordered or commissioned for use if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be con- sidered a work made for hire. Question 1: Was the work created by an employee? Yes? Proceed to Question 2. Question 2: Did the employee create the work while acting within the scope of employment? Yes? The work is a work made for hire. This seems to fall under (A). If the "bright-line" tests for (A) fail to affirmatively answer the question, then the totality of circumstances are considered via questions such as: > Where was the work created? Did the hiring party provide the space, materials, or tools to create the work? Was the work created as part of the regular business hours of the hiring party? Was the work created during the creator’s authorized work time? How long was the relationship between the parties? Did the hiring party have the right to assign other projects besides the one under review? Could the hiring party direct the creator when and how long to work? How was the creator paid? Did the hiring party offer employee benefits? Did the hiring party remove taxes from the creator’s pay? Does the creator have his or her own business? Was the creator able to hire and pay assistants? Was the work created pursuant to the creator’s usual tasks? What skill was required to create the work? 0: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf
aeternum 3y ago
Using company equipment to produce the copyright work also gives the company a strong case for ownership of the IP. Not using company equipment can be just as bad because now there's evidence you knowingly copied company records to a personal computer to build a competing product or for personal gain.
hansvm 3y ago
Not a lawyer. California (and to a much lesser degree other jurisdictions) limits how much an employer can extract from an employee. The default status (with or without those clauses) though is that the employee owns the IP they produce. A warehouse worker would not have had any contractual agreement to the contrary (probably), so CA's limits wouldn't come in to play since the whole thing is handled by ordinary IP law without any agreement superceding that normal behavior. Things get complicated a bit if there were a lot of trade secrets or whatnot that went into the software, but those restrictions would generally of the form <limit what the copyright holder can do with the software> rather than <trade secrets are involved, so magically the old employer can ignore the copyright holder>. Deleting the software or revoking access should be fine.
em-bee 3y ago
just because there is something in the contract, doesn't mean it would not also be true without a contract. in general work for hire is owned by the one paying. this is also true in the EU. the EU has clear exceptions that work done not for the company while employed, does not get owned by the company. even a contract can not override this. in the US this is less clear, and contracts can demand ownership of everything, and so often they do. i hardly doubt that warehouse worker contracts don't also have such a paragraph. it's pretty standard. i mean it doesn't hurt to put it in the contract. so why leave it out. even without a contract though, anything done at work in order to help your job should be owned by the company.

by bhaney 3y ago

swatcoder 3y ago

If it was written on site during work hours to facilitate assigned work, it'd be uphill battle to argue it wasn't work peformed for the employer.

mirashii 3y ago
However copyright assignment still defaults to the creator, so it's still worth asking whether there were IP assignment clauses in the employment contract.
- jeromegv 3y ago
  The creator in that case is the company. It defaults to them.
  - NSMutableSet 3y ago
    In California, it depends on whether you used equipment that belonged to your employer or not. In this case, a computer.
    - mbreese 3y ago
      Not just a computer... equipment could be anything needed in the course of developing -- or testing -- the software. I'm thinking of something like a warehouse management tool and you interfaced with a barcode reader or something like that.
    - nox101 3y ago
      You're also legally bound not to compete with your company. You can't work for Google and build a search engine "on your own time". you can't work for Nintendo and make a game on the side. What it means to compete will be decided by judges and lawyers in the gray areas but probably not hard to imagine clearly problem areas and likely not problem areas. If you want to know for sure, ask a lawyer and get a contract/letter from your employer to clarify.
  - Zambyte 3y ago
    Companies don't make things. People make things.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- reaperman 3y ago
  You're quite wrong about copyright assignment as it pertains to "works for hire". > If a work is made for hire, the employer or the party that specially ordered or commissioned that work is the initial owner of the copyright in the work unless the employer or the commissioning party has signed a written agreement to the contrary with the work's creator. For legal purposes, when a work is a “work made for hire,” the author is not the individual who actually created the work. Instead, the party that hired the individual is considered both the author and the copyright owner of the work. I fail to see how doing this during hours you are paid by the company, on their equipment, and for their specific operations...wouldn't be considered a "work for hire" in copyright law.[0] The VAST majority of work done by salaried professionals during work hours, at work, which can even remotely be demonstrated to benefit the employer...is a "work for hire". IP assignment agreements are redundant, and mostly only "needed" to prevent employees from trying to claim they did it all after hours, outside of work, using zero inside information they knew from working their day job. It's generally trivially easy to show that some of the development occurred during work, on work computers, at work, using inside knowledge of the company (trade secrets). > Section 101 of the Copyright Act defines a “work made for hire” as A) A work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment, or B) A work specially ordered or commissioned for use if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be con- sidered a work made for hire. Question 1: Was the work created by an employee? Yes? Proceed to Question 2. Question 2: Did the employee create the work while acting within the scope of employment? Yes? The work is a work made for hire. This seems to fall under (A). If the "bright-line" tests for (A) fail to affirmatively answer the question, then the totality of circumstances are considered via questions such as: > Where was the work created? Did the hiring party provide the space, materials, or tools to create the work? Was the work created as part of the regular business hours of the hiring party? Was the work created during the creator’s authorized work time? How long was the relationship between the parties? Did the hiring party have the right to assign other projects besides the one under review? Could the hiring party direct the creator when and how long to work? How was the creator paid? Did the hiring party offer employee benefits? Did the hiring party remove taxes from the creator’s pay? Does the creator have his or her own business? Was the creator able to hire and pay assistants? Was the work created pursuant to the creator’s usual tasks? What skill was required to create the work? 0: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf

aeternum 3y ago

Using company equipment to produce the copyright work also gives the company a strong case for ownership of the IP. Not using company equipment can be just as bad because now there's evidence you knowingly copied company records to a personal computer to build a competing product or for personal gain.

hansvm 3y ago

Not a lawyer. California (and to a much lesser degree other jurisdictions) limits how much an employer can extract from an employee. The default status (with or without those clauses) though is that the employee owns the IP they produce. A warehouse worker would not have had any contractual agreement to the contrary (probably), so CA's limits wouldn't come in to play since the whole thing is handled by ordinary IP law without any agreement superceding that normal behavior. Things get complicated a bit if there were a lot of trade secrets or whatnot that went into the software, but those restrictions would generally of the form <limit what the copyright holder can do with the software> rather than <trade secrets are involved, so magically the old employer can ignore the copyright holder>. Deleting the software or revoking access should be fine.

em-bee 3y ago

just because there is something in the contract, doesn't mean it would not also be true without a contract. in general work for hire is owned by the one paying. this is also true in the EU. the EU has clear exceptions that work done not for the company while employed, does not get owned by the company. even a contract can not override this. in the US this is less clear, and contracts can demand ownership of everything, and so often they do. i hardly doubt that warehouse worker contracts don't also have such a paragraph. it's pretty standard. i mean it doesn't hurt to put it in the contract. so why leave it out. even without a contract though, anything done at work in order to help your job should be owned by the company.