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Work-for-Hire Clauses in Employment Agreement

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 13 2016, @07:47AM   
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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Original Submission

• Timing of informationTiming of information (Score: 3, Informative) by Mykl on Tuesday September 13 2016, @08:09AM

  by Mykl (1112) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @08:09AM (#401189)

  Were these conditions revealed only after you signed the contract? If so, they are about as enforceable as an EULA.

  Are they referenced directly in the employment contract itself? Mine has some of those in there, but nothing too big.

  My guess is that your employer would be unable to take ownership of a GPL project, since your contribution only amounts to a percentage of the total work (and am I right in guessing that the percentage is small in terms of 'lines of code'?). Probably the worst they could do would be to fire you for 'breach of contract' (again, assuming that all of these clauses were available to you before you signed up).

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• Re:Timing of informationRe:Timing of information (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:19PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:19PM (#401277)

  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.

  Parent

  • Re:Timing of information(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:15PM

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @02:15PM (#401304)

    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

    Parent

  • Re:Timing of information(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:57PM

    by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:57PM (#401353)

    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.

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• Re:Timing of informationRe:Timing of information (Score: 2) by gznork26 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:34AM

  by gznork26 (1159) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:34AM (#401532) Homepage Journal

  I had a gig in the 80s at a US defense contractor. I was an employee of a contract house, and after I started, the defense company sent an agreement for me to sign. It had the same stipulation about them owning anything I created. I refused to sign it as it was, and the lawyer visited in person, flying the argument that 'everyone else signed it'. Well, I wouldn't, and they eventually gave up and allowed the provision to be stricken.

  Has this been something that people here have seen all along, or does it go into hiding from time to time?

  --
  Khipu were Turing complete.

  Parent

  • Modifying agreements(Score: 2) by Max Hyre on Monday September 19 2016, @11:14PM

    by Max Hyre (3427) <reversethis-{moc.oohay} {ta} {eryhxam}> on Monday September 19 2016, @11:14PM (#404030)

    I've never worked for anyone wanting to impose such onerous restrictions, but I have had to have a number of operations recently, and they want you to sign a release holding them harmless if they kill you by accident. Life's uncertain, I can live with that, but there's always a clause saying, roughly, ``You give up all right to any of your tissues that we're left with''. I always cross that one out before I sign it, to avoid ending up like Henrietta Lacks [wikipedia.org]. I've had some discussions about it, but no real pushback. I tell them ``If you make a million dollars from me, I want a cut''.

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