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Google claims copyright on employee side projects

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Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#241

Post by noneeeed »

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.

Yeah, my contract is similar. Anything that's somehow a direct competitor or related would be covered, but other projects would be just fine.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#242

Post by Roark66 »

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…

There are certain things employers put in their contracts even though they know 100% it is non enforceable due to being illegal etc. Years ago when I was an employee it was common practice in IT(in UK) to have a non-compete clause in your employment contract that said: "if you leave you can't work for a competition for 6-12 months". When I looked into it I found out statements like this are unenforceable under UK law as it would basically deny a person a right to work and one can't sign off right's that are inalienable just like one can't sell himsel/herself into slavery.

The process to enforce such a statement in UK would be for the past employer to obtain a court injunction requesting a past employee stops working for competition. I was told almost all such injunction requests are declined as unreasonable. The only exception is if the statement was severely limited by geography. So for example if the contract says: "you can't work for competition in 5 mile radius" it may be enforceable, unless your whole home town is 10 miles across and the statement basically bans you from working in your profession where you live - then no court will grant an injunction like this.

So why did employers put that into their contracts if they knew it can't be enforced? I think they did it to discourage employees from going to competition. Finding out that it is unenforceable requires some googling and one may have doubts about their specific situation. I'm not sure how it is now. My experience with this is over 10 years old.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#243

Post by martius »

majewsky wrote: post #182
martius wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, I had similar or worse in my employment contracts in France. Worse being "your skills are to be used exclusively for the benefit of Employer". That means that you can't do freelance work, or open source contributions. In theory, you're not even permitted to fix your parents printer.

"Honey, can you carry my shopping into the kitchen?" - "I'm sorry, my skills are to be used exclusively for the benefit of my employer."

Those are not the type of skills listed in your job description (which is part of your contract).

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#244

Post by pc86 »

TACIXAT wrote: post #146
strenholme wrote: post #80

It is my understanding that there has never been a case in California where a court has said “OK, your employer owns that open source patch you made at 3am on your own laptop”. Poking around, Applied Materials, Inc. v. Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment comes to mind; here is a summary: https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/publications/20... The only public case I know of where a company has been able to cl…

If that is the case then why is this a law? Why isn't the law more clear to reflect reality? I don't really want a gun pointed at me, regardless of whether I'm about to get shot. The threat and power structure is still there.

Because there's no incentive to change the law precisely because it's never been a problem. Despite the popular narrative, legislators are typically pretty busy (a lot of this is self-inflicted, though). So striking a law that has never been enforced a certain way because it might be enforced that way isn't a very productive use of their limited time, especially when courts have ruled quite the opposite.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#245

Post by Balgair »

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…

Exactly as Steve Blank mentioned 10 years ago (and 3 days shy to boot). The Elves are Leaving Middle Earth - The sodas are no longer free :

https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#246

Post by raphlinus »

Counterpoint: I open sourced a lot of stuff while I was at Google. There is some friction in the open source releasing and IARC policies (one of my projects got denied), but generally the open source teams at Google want you to do good work. And having clear documentation of ownership is actually helpful; there's a lot of dodgy stuff out there where you're not sure who actually has the rights.

Contrast to Apple, where, aside from a few high profile open source projects that help drive their business (Webkit, Swift, llvm), open source contribution is quite discouraged. How many fun Apple side projects do you see on Github?

I really enjoy the freedom now of just being able to click "create repo" whenever I feel like it, and am sad about the corporatization of the world economy, but I think Google is doing about as well as you can expect here.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#247

Post by Mindwipe »

scotty79 wrote: post #143
q3k wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You haven't heard about this because it's illegal in many (most?) places outside US.

It's not illegal in Europe except maybe Germany and that's more because of not being able to assign moral rights in work for hire than anything to do with at work/not at work.

I work in Europe and every company I've ever worked for has had a substantially similar clause.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#248

Post by Mindwipe »

surewhynat wrote: post #232
adventskalender wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. In Germany the default for contracts is that you need your employers permission to do side projects. Germany is in the EU.

No, that's nonsense. Just because Germany does it doesn't mean the parent commenter's experience in other EU countries is invalid.

European employment law is pretty unified, so it does at least suggest a significant commonality.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#249

Post by adventskalender »

surewhynat wrote: post #232
adventskalender wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. In Germany the default for contracts is that you need your employers permission to do side projects. Germany is in the EU.

No, that's nonsense. Just because Germany does it doesn't mean the parent commenter's experience in other EU countries is invalid.

He claimed it is an US only thing and US imperialism. The example of Germany refutes that. So it is nonsense.

But funny how you choose to believe his personal experience, rather than mine. All hail the narrative.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#250

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

Not just USA this time.

Readers might be interested in this recent case in the UK Supreme Court regarding employee compensation for "outstanding benefits" from an employee's invention (Unilever made £24M selling it, he got his wage).

https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2019/10/28/uk-supreme-court-rules...

It frames the fact that employers claim ownership, and have for decades, but that UK IP law, at least, does something about that.

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