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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: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 13 2016, @10:32AM
You do know contracts aren't set in stone, yes? My first bit of consulting work carried all that jazz except the non-poaching (which is often thrown out by the courts btw). I went to management and got an amendment tacked on to my contract saying code that I wrote on my time with no resemblance or relation to the code I wrote for them was owned by me. All it took was letting them know in a polite and respectful manner that I needed such an amendment in order to keep working for them and why.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.