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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:19PM
There was a short paragraph saying I would have to sign their agreement, but it was not provided beforehand. I even asked for it via text and did not get it, with the recruiter saying non-workplace stuff is unaffected.
My commits are in the tens, where the real devs do that without breaking a sweat.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:15PM
IANAL, but I would say that makes it unenforceable. There's a chance you could have to fight them in court though, which would be expensive.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:57PM
I walked out of a potential employer's office in a case like that.
"What do you mean the employment agreement I am expected to agree to is confidential?"
That was a food warehouse, not a tech job though.