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Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

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Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#3
post #2

Igor Sysoev developed Nginx while working in Rambler (a Russian search engine) back in 2002-2004. Now, 15 years later, Rambler filed a copyright claim against Nginx and Igor, and demands (allegedly) 51M RUB from them.

I think the statue of limitations in Russia is under 10 years for most civil claims. Maybe someone can clarify what are the actual charges and what would the statute of limitations be? If statute of limitations ran out, maybe the corporate lawyer can get this thrown out quickly?

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#4
Best practices for side projects (US):

- Never give work full rights to everything you make on your own time.

- Never use company hardware, software, time or offices to develop a side project you might want to monetize commercially later.

- Charge work a "1 node license fee" of $1 with an invoice and a standard commercial software EULA if you intend to try your creation at work. Also specify that it includes maintenance for the duration of your employment and that all modifications, including those made on work time and on work hardware, are your property and that they are granted a license to them for 1 node.

IANAL.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#5
post #2

Igor Sysoev developed Nginx while working in Rambler (a Russian search engine) back in 2002-2004. Now, 15 years later, Rambler filed a copyright claim against Nginx and Igor, and demands (allegedly) 51M RUB from them.

To save anyone else having to look it up. 51M RUB is currently around US $810k.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#6

Best practices for side projects (US): - Never give work full rights to everything you make on your own time. - Never use company hardware, software, time or offices to develop a side project you might want to monetize commercially later. - Charge work a "1 node license fee" of $1 with an invoice and a standard commercial software EULA if you intend to try your creation at work. Also specify that it includes maintena…

The thing is I am not sure if Igor was developing Nginx on his own time. IANAL as well, but I am not sure if it counts if part of the work was done from his Rambler workplace.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#7
This is why I am very glad to be an independent contractor without the pesky “inventions” clause. With “inventions” clauses, if I worked on my open-source MaraDNS while on the clock, a company could make a reasonable legal case that they own it.

Even in California, where a company can not own inventions done on one’s own equipment in one’s own time (as long as it’s not related to their day job), before signing an “inventions” clause, I am very careful to tag my GitHub repos with a date stamp before the date I signed the inventions clause, and only use versions of my open source software at work which I wrote before I started working for them (e.g. I have a secure password generator shell script, and when I use it to generate the dozen or so passwords I need to do my work, I use a version which existed before I started work at the company).

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#8
post #2

Igor Sysoev developed Nginx while working in Rambler (a Russian search engine) back in 2002-2004. Now, 15 years later, Rambler filed a copyright claim against Nginx and Igor, and demands (allegedly) 51M RUB from them.

I think the statue of limitations in Russia is under 10 years for most civil claims. Maybe someone can clarify what are the actual charges and what would the statute of limitations be? If statute of limitations ran out, maybe the corporate lawyer can get this thrown out quickly?

I don't think it works like that. The supposed copyright violation is ongoing.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#9
post #5
post #2

Igor Sysoev developed Nginx while working in Rambler (a Russian search engine) back in 2002-2004. Now, 15 years later, Rambler filed a copyright claim against Nginx and Igor, and demands (allegedly) 51M RUB from them.

To save anyone else having to look it up. 51M RUB is currently around US $810k.

Somewhat surprised this hasn't settled out of court then.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#10
post #9
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save anyone else having to look it up. 51M RUB is currently around US $810k.

Somewhat surprised this hasn't settled out of court then.

I'd be surprised if it had been. I'd wager Rambler is after the ngnix itself rather than some cash.
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