Can Employers Own Your Thoughts?
from the so-much-for-the-free-agent-economy dept
Salon is running a very good wrap-up of the case Evan Brown lost to Alcatel, concerning whether they owned the rights to an idea he developed on his own time. The article, while sympathetic to Brown, does cover the issues on both sides of the case, suggesting that Brown made some mistakes in dealing with the situation -- though, all of those appear to be honest mistakes almost anyone might make. Still, with so many people working on random side-projects all the time, does it put employees at risk of somehow being stuck with the company they currently work for to avoid having to deal with a lawsuit? The article offers some suggestions for anyone else in a similar situation, but the best one might be what a number of readers here suggested last year when a similar case (involving Apple) came to light: when you're offered an employment contract cross out the section that says they own anything you create while employed there.
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My first interview out of school was with a company like that and basically they wanted a programmer analyst, not for programming but for tech support (and offering sub-par tech support pay for it).
It was a 2 year contract for 18000$ a year (canadian), and big as day, that clause was there. I took it home and had a lawyer friend of the family look at it. Basically ANYTHING that ever produced any commercial benefits was OWNED completely and totally by the company (even if in an unrelated field...this was a company who developped alarm/monitoring systems).
I asked my interviewer, "so the way this is worded, if I decide to write a novel in my spare time, the company owns it?". His quick response "Yes. That's correct. But we would work with you for 'equitable' compensation, I mean we don't have to, but its fair." They outright refused me crossing out the clause, "Its a legal thing" he said.
Instead of saying no and laughing in their face, I told them I'd take the job, IF they quadrupled the salary because I told them that that clause meant in effect that I was working FOR them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and if that's what they wanted, they could pay me for it.
Talk about an alarming trend.
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Body and soul
Usual lamer caveat, IANAL
Organized religion: Old farts preying on man's fear of death and dying, making promises that are empiracally unverifiable, encouraging you to believe giving them a lot of money is a good thing, none of which is taxabe.
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You've got to watch it
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