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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

• 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.

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• 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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