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from the better-don-your-asbestos-undergarments dept.
An anonymous poster 'The ABKCO Thieves' writes in about new hire paperwork.
I recently started work at a well-known e-commerce business, which is a great opportunity for me. Only after I started did I find out the full inventions, NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), non-poaching, and work-for-hire agreement is onerous. It treats any work of authorship during my employment as their property, even if done on my own time and equipment. I can't post the agreement because it would identify the company, and potentially me as well.
Earlier this year I began contributing code to a GPL v2 project that has existed for more than a decade. I want to continue to do so, but how can I without risking "contamination" of it thanks to this agreement? Part of my goal in contributing is to have real live code I can point to, so going under the radar defeats that purpose.
Are these sorts of intellectual property agreements common?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by coolgopher on Tuesday September 13 2016, @08:13AM
This seems to be common practice for employers (especially large, lawyer-filled places) to try on. I've read in the past that they don't have much chance to stand up in court, but if you go to court you lose either way.
What I've done in the past when presented with these is simply tell them that those terms are unreasonable and I cannot sign as-is. Crossing out and/or restricting the clauses to only work time & equipment has always been accepted in the end. Stand your ground, and counter with e.g. garden-analogies - "if you re-landscaped your garden over the weekend, would you consider it reasonable that it now belonged to the company?" Even non-technical managers are easily brought to over to your side this way (and it gives them the means to argue upwards as necessary, on your behalf).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:29AM
If they present this as electronically sign-able only, then you cannot cross out anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:45AM
Print it and send them a copy?
Too many people forget that must of these "dictates" are supposed to be agreements between 2 parties. Its quite possible the other party will not want to have you when you do not agree to their terms, but people need to get away from the idea that there is no choice.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 13 2016, @12:42PM
Yes, onerous, unconsciable agreements are common. It's like they want to know how scared, desperate, and wimpy you are, and how hard they can swing the whips. Also how much of a noob you are, and whether you even read the agreement or just blindly signed it in naive trust that it couldn't be too bad. If you don't push back at all, you mark yourself as meat they can grind up in their sweatshop. They won't want to have you on any teams that negotiate deals with other companies, they'll worry that you will give away the store.
Also, they are composed of many people, and the rest of the company may well disagree with the crazy unfair expectations their own lawyers try to push on everyone. They hope you will object to the outrageous provisions. Ever heard of any group of engineers actually liking HR? No, it's Catbert vs the serfs.
Should it be like this? It sets an adversarial tone to the employer-employee relationship. Not good. We ought to have acceptable standard agreements for employment contracts, readily available online.
Might be worth writing our politicians about this sort of thing. Especially if you are in one of those Right-to-Work states.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Thursday September 15 2016, @02:16PM
Same here. All my last several jobs have had such a broad clause in the contract, but have amended it for me. (I don't know whether it's a feature of UK law, or whether I've just been lucky, but I've always been sent a paper copy by post, as part of the formal job offer, to read, sign, and return.)
IIRC, I've usually requested that they insert something along the lines of "...on company business or using company equipment...". I've explained it by pointing out that otherwise, they would be taking the copyright of all my holiday snaps, blog posts, music I write, and so on; and I'm lucky that they've always made the change without comment.
I'm slightly surprised that such a broad claim is still standard in contracts. (Maybe there are too many different creative jobs for any standard restriction to apply to them all?)
(Of course, a decent employer would never enforce that copyright — but then a decent employer wouldn't insist on such an overreaching clause in the contract in the first place.)
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