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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:47AM   Printer-friendly
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?


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  • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:36PM

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:36PM (#401286) Journal

    If they want to have the right to the product of your labour 24 hours a day, then they have to be prepared to pay for your labour 24 hours a day.

    What you do in your own time is not something to which they should have a claim.

    As someone else has suggested, modify the terms of the agreement to state that you expect to be paid for 24 hours a day, or that they only have claim to your work for the period which they are paying you.

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