Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 484 posts

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#171

Post by lsaferite »

AstralStorm wrote: post #99
lsaferite wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. Would you still be as happy? Hell, even 50% more. And you are spreading the work across multiple clients so any one client 'firing' you is suddenly not a huge thing since your income is distributed across multiple clients. Sure, you don't get paid benefits, but you get higher income and the ability to work for multiple c…

This never happens, as there is a minimum time to create a "minimum viable work unit" and often you're paid to deliver as soon as possible, not a year later. I've never seen a contract with enough slack to make overlapping work reasonable. It is not physically possible. Might only work if you're selling templates or are a Mechanical Turk. Generally higher income is not much higher either way, at least around here. No…

Well, from personal, non-template, work I can say that I was frequently running work from 2-4 clients easily enough. If a client was more demanding of time then I was more demanding on cost.

If contract work is getting paid the same as FTE, then something is messed up. I literally charged double what I make right now as an FTE.

And yeah, I even called out the missing benefits, but that's something you pay for out of the income differential.

I've been a contract worker several times in my life. I'm currently a FTE and like the people I work for. Going contract is certainly not for everyone and is perhaps a panic inducing decision depending on your current situation.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#172

Post by distances »

cookiecaper wrote: post #119
kutkloon7 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course no one literally thinks this, but I observe that many Americans have a tendency to like rich people, and give them the benefit of the doubt. In a presidential election, for example.

Everyone has a tendency to flatter wealthy people because the truth is that they're hoping, consciously or subconsciously, they'll get a dispensation from them somewhere down the line: a sale, a gift, or some other kind of benefit from association with a powerful individual. Unfortunately, it appears that many wealthy people forget this and begin to believe that they actually are just brilliant and special and that m…

> You basically must be wealthy to be successful in national politics [..] and this is also the case in not-America as far as I can tell.

I'd say not a requirement in the Nordics. I'm sure it won't hurt though.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#173

Post by [deleted] »

jamesblonde wrote: post #93

I'm a lecturer/prof in Sweden and we have had this law for years. We own all our own IP. In other top tier Universities around the world the norm is that the university takes 20-50% of the IPR/equity. Needless to say that we are very happy with it (lärareundantag). However, a word of caution: it doesn't seem to make any difference when attracting top talent. My experience is that even in Systems Research, candidates…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#174

Post by awinter-py »

gcb0 wrote: post #124

wait. wasn't that the law in California already? or am I thinking of non competes?

Yeah -- this seems not to differ from the law in california / wisconsin.

http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2...

These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'.

Many california-based companies will echo this language in the IP assignment section of their employment contract.

These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#175

Post by matthewmcg »

tajen wrote: post #158
matthewmcg wrote: post #137

I work at a large law firm that represents a lot of software companies. Our standard employee agreement forms have the usual default (company owns everything you create with its resources or that relates to the scope of your employment). This default has always amused me because lawyers never sign these kinds of agreements with their own law firms . We spend most of our time writing contracts, memos, and other bits o…

You are answering a big question of mine: "If I launch a PAAS product, am I allowed to copy Heroku's terms of use?". Seems like it's covered by copyright but it's IP-free zone, although "IANAL"... On the other hand, it would be a headache if contracts were covered by copyright: If your competitor adds a clause to their contract, can you add the same clause if it's covered by copyright, or are you forever banned from…

Two points:

First, even if you are able to borrow functional language from a contract without infringing someone's copyright, that doesn't make it a good idea. Heroku's terms were written for them and their specific business risks, governing law, etc. Your own PaaS business may have different requirements. And copying wholesale probably is infringement.

Second, by "IP free zone," I'm talking about people's attitudes and behavior towards the materials they borrow from--that certainly doesn't express a legal conclusion about it or mean what they are doing is not infringement.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#176

Post by eloff »

uniclaude wrote: post #8

People keep complaining about how hard and expensive it is to attract top talent. This kind of measure is exactly how you do it. Provide an environment where employees feel trusted and empowered, pay market rate, screen properly instead of having applicants jump through hoops, and you won't have much trouble hiring. Kudos to github for this, I'm impressed!

I turned down a job with IBM once they told me, after appeal, that they would own my side project if I continued to work on it. The interview process cost me 40 hours and an all-nighter take home (I really needed the job.) The salary was fantastic for Canada, but still pathetic by US standards.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#177

Post by s3nnyy »

One of my clients* is a fashion startup here in Zurich. The founder started his computer vision startup with material he discovered during his research at the ETH.

He had to pay only a quiet low sum to get the IP. The sum was measured by how long it would take him to transcribe (literally type) the algorithms out of his head.

(*I run a tech recruiting agency; happy to help people who want to move to Zurich.)

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#178

Post by TheCoelacanth »

cookiecaper wrote: post #112
VLM wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer so this isn't legal advice but that's very interesting about English law, because in the USA employees have the "in the course of employment" as you state but USA independent contractors retain copyright unless they assign it as part of their contract, so about 99% of contracts have a clause to assign ownership and copyright to the client. Also in the USA putting language like "employment" in a contr…

>because in the USA employees have the "in the course of employment" as you state but USA independent contractors retain copyright unless they assign it as part of their contract, so about 99% of contracts have a clause to assign ownership and copyright to the client. I'm not a lawyer either but this is not true in the US afaik. "Works made for hire" are automatically copyrighted by the hirer, not the contractor. Cop…

Actually, it's the opposite. Works done by independent contractors are only works for hire if they fall into a narrow range of categories and are explicitly agreed to be a work for hire. If you want copyright of contracted work, you should have the contractor explicitly assign copyright to you.

From that circulation,

> A work created by an independent contractor can be a work made for hire only if (a) it falls within one of the nine categories of works listed in part 2 above and (b) there is a written agreement between parties specifying that the work is a work made for hire.

The nine categories are

> as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#179

Post by shawnee_ »

matthewmcg wrote: post #137

I work at a large law firm that represents a lot of software companies. Our standard employee agreement forms have the usual default (company owns everything you create with its resources or that relates to the scope of your employment). This default has always amused me because lawyers never sign these kinds of agreements with their own law firms . We spend most of our time writing contracts, memos, and other bits o…

The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone.

Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is getting clients to sign their forms: their terms usually have the word "percent" hard-coded into the contract. Rather than opening the door to hourly or fixed dollar amounts, they insist that their forms are the "standard". I heard one recently say in a public forum that banks "require" these specific forms that only Realtors have... this is a total lie, and anybody that tells you that you can't negotiate to create your own contract for a deal should be prosecuted for coercion.

I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. They take value out of transactions -- equity that's taken literal years to build up -- gone in one (fell) swoop. People need to be way more aggressive in their negotiations with real estate salespeople, and it all starts with the contract.

This is still a small, WIP, side project (free, open-source contract templates); however, you can get the idea: http://ecosteader.com/docs

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#180

Post by lsaferite »

amyjess wrote: post #101
lsaferite wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. Would you still be as happy? Hell, even 50% more. And you are spreading the work across multiple clients so any one client 'firing' you is suddenly not a huge thing since your income is distributed across multiple clients. Sure, you don't get paid benefits, but you get higher income and the ability to work for multiple c…

> Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. No, I wouldn't. I value stability and simplicity in my life, and I will gladly eschew higher pay for a more traditional lifestyle. I'm a conservative suburbanite with no ambition, and I'm proud of it. On top of that, non-employer insurance is terrible. In some states, you actually cannot get a PPO unless you're on an emplo…

I'd argue that being an employee is less stable than you think it is in general, at least in the tech sector.

I had my own private PPO for a decade (geez!) at least, and the policy provisions were better than most employer policies I saw offered to me. Well, at least until the ACA came around and shook everything up a little.

I'm happy you're a happy 9-5er with zero business desire and that you are 100% risk averse. You are not the target of my comment.

Post reply on HN