Google claims copyright on employee side projects • Hacker News Board

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#111

Post by Random_ernest » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

akuji1993 wrote: post #24

draugadrotten wrote: post #11

Does society accept this behaviour outside tech? Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time. Or that the big farm would ask for a piece of those carrots grown in the back yard.

This is mostly a US thing. If I don't implement a DIRECT competitor to my company in my free time, the company can do absolutely nothing about it here. IF I implement a competitor and put it on the market, they can fire me. They can't however, sue me for the posession of the software. That's just a legal nightmare in the US.

Assuming you mean germany? In germany your company can not sue you for ownership of the software, but they can sue for all the earnings you made with it.

I was in a similar situation where I had an idea for a similar product the company I worked for was toying around but was not able to implement. In the end I quit, waited a few month and then implemented it, just to be sure.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#112

Post by Xylakant » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

maze-le wrote: post #73

lnsru wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried it? One still has “Anzeigepflicht des Arbeitnehmers” (duty to report). And then your boss has a right to forbid your activity. It is a very thing in Germany.

Have you? This is only relevant if your invention is in direct competition to the business at hand.

It's not: See https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__18.html You must report everything that is not clearly and obviously unrelated to an employers business. That's different from "direct competition". The circumstances under which an employer can make claims to it are more nuanced: If it's related to a field that the employer has business in or is preparing to have business in, they get a right of first buy for at least a non-exclusive license. And that's the problem with google: They do basically everything IT-related. Whatever you might invent - it will likely be related to field google is in or is preparing to be in.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#113

Post by amelius » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:35 PM UTC

tytso wrote: post #95

Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

> The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time".

That depends. If the employee's project is in an area that is completely different from what Google is doing, then it should be clear that there is no conflict. At least the wording in the contract should reflect that possibility.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#114

Post by q3k » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

fierarul wrote: post #104

> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". In the US. Problem is the US is infecting the rest of the world too, especially through subsidiaries which basically just translate from English the 'standard' employment contract. I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically i…

Can confirm from my experience (~10 years in the industry). I've never even heard of this practice until I applied to Google. None of the EU companies I've worked at before had anything like this. None of the EU companies I've worked at since had anything like this.

It's US imperialism, nothing less.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#115

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

fierarul wrote: post #104

> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". In the US. Problem is the US is infecting the rest of the world too, especially through subsidiaries which basically just translate from English the 'standard' employment contract. I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically i…

> If the employer owns your brain 24h/day maybe the hourly rate your are getting is not such a great deal.

If you're a software engineer for Google, it's a pretty good hourly rate.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#116

Post by Yizahi » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

"usbmuxd was rejected without an explanation. My follow-up email asking for clarification was ignored."

Isn't it funny that Google employees themselves at least sometimes can taste how other Google "products" feel when their accounts are banned, deleted and there is zero ways to appeal such decisions?

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#117

Post by jsjohnst » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

microcolonel wrote: post #76

draugadrotten wrote: post #11

Does society accept this behaviour outside tech? Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time. Or that the big farm would ask for a piece of those carrots grown in the back yard.

Food is ineligible for copyright, in any event. This is the default for employed persons in Canada, to some extent: anything you publish could be considered the property of your employer. In the U.S. I believe this is typically done by agreement, and most companies include it in employment contracts, that I've seen. The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employee…

> The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employees

Huh? This has been a company policy of theirs for a long time. OP’s post is not about recent actions.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#118

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #113

tytso wrote: post #95

Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

> The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". That depends. If the employee's project is in an area that is completely different from what Google is doing, then it should be clear that there is no conflict. At least the wording in the contract should reflect that possibility.

If that is the case, Google has a process for explicitly relinquishing their claim on copyright to the creator.

The intent of this policy is to make it clear that creators have to go through that process if they want to use something they fabricated as a side project independently.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#119

Post by JauntyHatAngle » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #115

fierarul wrote: post #104

> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". In the US. Problem is the US is infecting the rest of the world too, especially through subsidiaries which basically just translate from English the 'standard' employment contract. I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically i…

> If the employer owns your brain 24h/day maybe the hourly rate your are getting is not such a great deal. If you're a software engineer for Google, it's a pretty good hourly rate.

Not if they claim ownership on your side projects.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#120

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, Dec 18, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

q3k wrote: post #114

fierarul wrote: post #104

> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". In the US. Problem is the US is infecting the rest of the world too, especially through subsidiaries which basically just translate from English the 'standard' employment contract. I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically i…

Can confirm from my experience (~10 years in the industry). I've never even heard of this practice until I applied to Google. None of the EU companies I've worked at before had anything like this. None of the EU companies I've worked at since had anything like this. It's US imperialism, nothing less.

I think you make an excellent point, in particular regarding the fact that this is a US-based policy.

US copyright law is extremely friendly to individual creators at the expense of corporations. It makes corporations bend over backwards to avoid getting into a messy legal dispute with somebody that they've employed to create for them. This policy is so broad because if an individual Google employee were to try and claim that basically anything they came up with (including things that were, common sense dictates, done as work for Google) had been done on their own time, the burden of proof would be on Google to prove otherwise.