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Google claims copyright on employee side projects

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Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#121

Post by stopads »

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…

There are many things that are "standard industry practice" that will be illegal some day, and using some other company as a defense for anything is supremely lazy.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#122

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> 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". ... So anyone who think this is some evidence of Google being, or becoming, evil is either seriously misinformed, or just engaging in unthinking hate of Google, or both.

The fact that every other US company is as evil does not make Google any better. The practice is evil, thus Google is evil.

The US got some economic leeway from California and a few other states banishing that exact practice. If they start to backtrack on that, you can expect the entire country to suffer on a couple of decades.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#123

Post by rla3rd »

with online computing where is the line drawn for employee vs employer equipment? lets say i have a personal aws account and i ssh into an ec2 instance, but use my employers laptop to access it to have the information displayed. The same can also be said for a home computing resource. Who's also paying for the electric for that equipment to be used? My employer provided laptop wouldn't run if I didn't pay my personal electric bill. I think there's likely a big gray area that hasn't been explored yet. I've not heard of any cases where any of this comes into play.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#124

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

jsjohnst wrote: post #93
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #65

I personally think this is just another step in a series of many reminding us that Google has become just another US corporation. And a way those grow is by finding 'efficiencies','doing more with less' and leveraging their size. It is an end of an era. Then again, Jimmy Johns was always pretty bad for the workers and attempted to have kids working there signing non-competes. Maybe we should be happy it took google s…

> Google has become just another US corporation They’ve always been that to me. We should all try to look past hype and focus on the reality, not just the perception of the moment. Does Google handle scale better than the vast majority of other companies? Yes. Did Google build an industry leading search engine? Yes. Did Google steal the patented idea[0] that ended up giving them essentially f!?k you money that has en…

I am never sure why people dismiss hype. Hype is a perception and perception, for better or worse, is reality. My boss thinks I am a bum. Do you think it will be easier to change his mind or change jobs?

As to why? Google had a good story. People like good stories.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#125

Post by marcosdumay »

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…

> I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically illegal under Romanian law.

If it's illegal, it's void, isn't it? (Maybe Romania does it differently?)

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#127

Post by ghaff »

magicalhippo wrote: post #105
ghaff wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context of equipment here is (or should be) "all the expensive equipment in the lab that the employee couldn't possibly outfit themselves with." As you say, a generic laptop is awful close to being a pen and paper these days. That said, if this sort of thing is a potential issue for you, you're probably better off using a purely personal laptop or desktop that isn't used for work purposes at all.

> That said, if this sort of thing is a potential issue for you, you're probably better off using a purely personal laptop or desktop that isn't used for work purposes at all. I got a similar clause, and this is indeed what I do. I think it's fair that they get copyright when they provide the software/hardware. It's also simple for me to avoid that, I just use my home computer with my own Windows license (or Linux) f…

>The current one only has the "using company equipment".

In that case, it makes a lot of sense just to keep the two domains separate. The flip side of a laptop being a relatively inexpensive piece of semi-commoditized gear if that, if there's a good reason to have a separate computer for personal projects, it's not really a big deal to do so.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#128

Post by q3k »

marcosdumay wrote: post #125
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…

> I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically illegal under Romanian law. If it's illegal, it's void, isn't it? (Maybe Romania does it differently?)

Do you _really_ want to go against Google's lawyers in court?

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#129

Post by pjc50 »

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…

> It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time"

I've seen this a lot. I've also seen a lot of people saying that it's fair to use github commits as a means of selecting software engineers to employ. What I've not seen is how these two are supposed to co-exist.

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