4 ms·

Ask HN: What to do when your code is stolen?

• davidw 17y ago
  Talk to a lawyer? Not much else to say - only a lawyer will be able to look at your contract, examine the situation, and tell you if you have grounds to do anything.
  • indiejade 17y ago
    Unfortunately, the guy who hired me is a lawyer. I thought he was trustworthy, but when he discovered my disgust with the real estate industry, he went all out to attack me. And there is no contract. . . hello being taken advantage of yet again!
    • davidw 17y ago
      > Unfortunately, the guy who hired me is a lawyer. "Talk to a lawyer" means "enquire with a lawyer about the possibility of them taking on your case". Presumably not the one that you feel owes you.
    • wizzard 17y ago
      You agreed to work without a contract? You LET yourself be taken advantage of. Don't make it sound like you were an innocent bystander. I'm sorry you are upset but it really seems like you did everything wrong in this situation. You need to do some reading about employment law and employee rights, specifically as they pertain to software development. It's a bad situation, and other employers might have been a lot more charitable towards you for taking initiative. But that's what it would have been... charity. From what you've told us, they don't owe you anything. Consider this a painful lesson and move on.
• indiejade 17y ago
  http://www.willowvillagesquare.com http://www.willowvillagesquare.com is the site I developed from scratch. My company name has been removed and replaced with "Radio Homes, LLC". . .
• RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  IANAL ... Generally, default contracts (those in effect if you don't explicitly have one) state that anything you do or produce while working for a company belongs to the company. Sucks, doesn't it. If that's the case where you are (and it varies from region to region, country to country) then you have no rights. What you produced is theirs, and they can do what they like with it. Whether this really does extend to removing your copyright statement or not I don't know, but you're not going to find out cheaply. My advice, for what it's worth, is to chalk it up to experience. In two weeks you built something you could be proud of. Looking at it another way, you've lost only two weeks of your time, been paid, and learned a valuable lesson. Don't produce something unless you know who has the rights, who's paying, and how much. The only other advice I can give is to write a letter "more in sorrow than anger" expressing your disappointment that they have appropriated your work, removed the credit, and have failed to acknowledge the effort you put into it. You could include a comment that it's been an eye-opener, and experience that you intend to pass on to others. See what response that gets. Be careful not to make threats. Be "saddened" by the incident. Remember, these are comments from someone without a stake in it, and any action you take is your own. I still suggest you simply walk away, taking the lesson.
  • deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    • RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
      Your comment does not lend credibility to your position. You might want to delete it and rethink before commenting again. I have no idea why you think I'm not serious. Which bit do you have trouble with? You were employed by them. You produced something. They own it. That's how employment law works. If you provide a more reasoned and rational response then I'll provide a more detailed reply.
      • indiejade 17y ago
        Are you a lawyer? Why should people with good intentions be taken advantage of? It's time to update employment law to the 21st Century.
• cperciva 17y ago
  During the 2 weeks I was an employee, I built the company a website to showcase this townhome community it is developing. Ok, so... during the time that you were an employee, you were told to do work; you did it; and your employer owns the work you did. What did you think was going to happen?
  • indiejade 17y ago
    Are you actually endorsing property management companies? I worked as a temp secretary under "employee" status. I built the website on my own time, under my company status. Two separate things.
    • RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
      You don't understand employment law. This is nothing to do with property management companies, it's everything to do with the fact that you were employed by them at the time you built this. Whether or not you did it on your own time is largely irrelevant. It's related to their business, you were employed by them (under default contract) and hence, by law, it probably belongs to them. You goofed, it seems to be your fault, and you won't get any more advice or comment if you rant and shout at us for telling you the truth.
      • davidw 17y ago
        In California, companies don't automatically get everything you do on your own time. However, it appears he already handed it over, so I don't think there's a lot that can be done, and especially not without talking to a laywer. Never deliver stuff without a contract.
• indiejade 17y ago
  Sexism. That's what this basically boils down to. . . Evil Sexism. Hire the girl as a secretary, rape her of her talents, and steal her credit. WTF.
  • allenbrunson 17y ago
    you know, i can understand that you are upset. but blaming this on 'sexism' is pretty laughable. i suspect that there isn't a single one of us male tech workers who hasn't been screwed over once or twice. especially those of us who have been around the block a time or two. part of dealing with adversity is managing your own feelings. yours have gotten away from you right now, and it's causing you to act irrationally. first you had only one problem: some company you were working for didn't act in good faith. now you've got an additional problem: your emotions are clouding your judgement. if you keep acting like this, you could easily make this a far worse problem than it already is. you don't have much control over how the people at the realty company behave. but you have absolute control over your own feelings. that's the first thing you should be working on.
• RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  OK, there's more emerging as we delve deeper. Firstly, it appears that you worked on this web site only outside of the hours you were being paid for. Is that right? Secondly, you were doing this work in the time allocated to your own company as an opportunity to show what was possible. Is this right? Thirdly, during the time you were being paid for, you worked only and exclusively on what you were asked to do. Is this right? If so, then so far so good. Now the problems start. Fourthly, at some point you demonstrated the web site you'd developed running on your own server. Is that right? Fifthly, you were specifically requested to transfer the web site to a server they had control of. Is that right? Sixthly, you did so, without mentioning payment or issues of ownership. Is that right? Why should they think it wasn't theirs? Did you ever say to them that it was yours, not theirs, and that you were going to offer it in exchange for payment? What seems clear is that there is scope for confusion. From what you've been saying it seems completely reasonable that they think they own it. If you think otherwise then you must explain not your point of view, but their point of view. Consider. They were paying you. You produced this. What did you do or say to make it clear that the two things aren't related? EDIT: If it comes to some sort of arbitration - what evidence do you have that the work is yours?
• indiejade 17y ago
  I'm extremely talented and adaptable. As "secretary" I endured the pain of answering telephones and routing calls. Whether or not I worked on this web site in or out of official "work hours" is irrelevant. I did work on this site mostly away from my official "work hours," answering the damn telephone. The entire site was developed on my personal server, before being exposed to this Evil property management company, and my site is entirely wholesome. The changed link is not so much. I'm still begging for help; how much do I have to beg?
  • RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    > I'm extremely talented and adaptable. I have no reason to doubt that. > As "secretary" I endured the pain of answering > telephones and routing calls. As a technical person who has occasionally been called upon to do this sort of work, I know how difficult it can be, especially when dealing with the general public. > Whether or not I worked on this web site in > or out of official "work hours" is irrelevant. Sadly, I think you'll find that the law takes a different point of view, and if you did do any of this work during the time being paid for, you are on very, very difficult ground. > I did work on this site mostly away from my > official "work hours," "Mostly" is unlikely to be good enough. > The entire site was developed on my personal server, > before being exposed to this Evil property management > company, and my site is entirely wholesome. So the question remains, how has it ended up under their control? Did they wget and upload a copy? Can you prove that? Does the site contain anything that you can prove is yours? > I'm still begging for help; > how much do I have to beg? I suspect you've been given the best advice you're going to get from here. You have two basic options. Either take your lumps and walk away having learned something about employment law, evil employers, and not giving things away before you've discussed and agreed payment terms, or ... Get yourself a lawyer. Do lots of homework, compile your evidence, read about employment law in your area, then take advantage of the free hour initial consultation that many of them offer. Make a compelling case. If you can't convince them then you'll have to walk away. Otherwise you will have some professional advice on your side. Alternatively, what help do you want us to give?
    • roundsquare 17y ago
• wolfgang 17y ago
  Get a lawyer. Good luck!
• TeHCrAzY 17y ago
  Been there, done that, lived with the mistake. Would all the stress, emotion and distraction of pushing further be worth it in the end? I'd just call it a learning experience (and a loss), toss the whole thing into history and move on with more interesting things.
• radu_floricica 17y ago
  What RiderOfGiraffes said so far is what I also know about the subject. To summarize: - Worked produced while employed as a programmer belongs to the employer. "Signature from a painting" doesn't apply: they have not only ownership but authorship, too. You have two ways to beat this, and both depend on the specific law where you worked and the specific employment contract you signed: - First, whether you were hired as a programmer or not. This could be a big deal, but you need to dig into the text of the law or talk to a (specialized) lawyer. - Second, whether work done outside official working hours is yours or theirs. It could be either way, but it's definitely written somewhere (law and/or contract). You're not the first to stumble on this issue, but unfortunately here you'll find mostly hackers, less lawyers. When you look for a lawyer though make sure he knows about IP and employment law.