Live data from Hacker News

Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

twitter.com

121–130 of 339 posts

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#121
post #39

I've asked this before and never got a straight answer, but I'll ask again: what exact clauses do I need to modify in the employment contract, and what exactly must they say, in order to avoid this sort of situation? (relevant to UK employment that is). If you've solved this for yourself, please tell us all how and what it's written in yours so we can do the same. Here is a link to what my previous employment contrac…

Just a note - in all places I've worked (BigCo's) they take a zero-tolerance approach to modifying the contract. It is their way or the highway. I guess they can afford to just say no and pass on you, rather than have loads of employees with their own unique snowflake contracts. Perhaps smaller companies are less strict, but IME big ones take zero shit in this regard. Good luck.

Personally I don't have any hopes of such a feat at a big company but I can't stand to think it's not possible to have this anywhere.

From past interviews I've seen smaller companies are willing to compromises and are reasonable in their demands, but a real example of something that already exists and is in effect goes a long way to show you're not being overly pretentious (like I've been "accused" by previous managers before). Reason why I'm searching for what people actually have in their contracts right now.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#122
I think the IT industry is filled with broad, vague clauses like this that aim to lay claim to all IP an employee creates (which can include art, music etc. as well).

Some employers make the excuse that it's only during office hours; others claim that this clause would "never actually be used".

In my experience it is rarely removed. I've turned down jobs because of it and others that I have accepted I have been extremely worried something like this would happen. I feel for the employee in question and hope they are able to retain control of their open-source code. Maybe this bad publicity encourages others to push back in the future because I generally find this behaviour quite unacceptable.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#123
post #39

I've asked this before and never got a straight answer, but I'll ask again: what exact clauses do I need to modify in the employment contract, and what exactly must they say, in order to avoid this sort of situation? (relevant to UK employment that is). If you've solved this for yourself, please tell us all how and what it's written in yours so we can do the same. Here is a link to what my previous employment contrac…

Usually the clause where they claim ownership needs to have the phrase "Related to the business", or "During work hours with company equipment". If it tries to claim all IP during the course of the employment, redline it and hand it back

[deleted]

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#124
As an employee, I’ve managed to evade these clauses by negotiating them as early as possible in the interview process. With smaller companies, it hasn’t really been as difficult as I expected.

However, my local laws provide some additional protection against this type of thing. I didn’t even realize it until I consulted with a lawyer who pointed out that my state’s laws don’t allow companies to claim IP generated in off hours. Of course, consult with a lawyer to confirm which jurisdiction actually applies to your employment.

As a manager on the other side of the table, I’ve had some strange experiences: On more than one occasion, employees have tried to open-source things they wrote for us without asking. Juniors especially may not fully understand the bounds of IP ownership, to the point that they think code they wrote is theirs, even if written for their job as paid works for hire. I’m not suggesting that’s what’s happening here, but after seeing developers walk straight into situations where they’re releasing company code without permission I reserve judgment when I see situations like this. If these libraries were developed on company time for company work products then the developer may not have a particularly strong claim for his ownership.

On the other hand, if these are entirely unreleased to his work then of course this is a ridiculous request.

EDIT: A quick look at the source code suggests this situation might not be as clear-cut in favor of the developer as the comments here suggest. Both of the repos in question appear to be derivative works of projects that Badoo (aka Bumble, the developer's employer) owns. The MVIKotlin library opens with this statement:

> This project is inspired by Badoo MVICore library.

And the Decompose repo has this statement in the opening:

> This project is inspired by Badoos RIBs fork of the Uber RIBs framework.

And unless I'm missing something, the developer worked for Badoo (Bumble) during the entire period. It would be extremely difficult to argue that a derivative work of your employer's IP, written during your time of employment and possibly during work time, is fully independent of the company. If the developer used these projects in any way for their work at Bumble (e.g. actually using these tools or libraries as part of the app) or he used company equipment/time/resources while building them, then it would be virtually impossible to argue that these works were not partially work-for-hire as part of his employment.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#125
post #99
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting related question I've always had is what even counts as a contribution. For example, consider the three situations: (a) I open an issue about a feature not working. E.g.: “When I press the button, the app crashes”. (b) Same as (a), but I also point out the place in the code where the error is without providing any code to fix it. E.g. “When I press the button, the app crashes, and I think that it has t…

what is to be owned in case of (a) and (b)? at the most extreme (a) means that you are opening an issue in the name of the company. the question then is: were you allowed to do that? (many contracts forbid you to speak in the name if the company unless explicitly instructed) and (b) would mean that you contributed a company resource to the project (namely you contributed yourself, your knowledge, etc), but it is the…

Copyright is not likely to subsist in a one or two line bug fix. There isn't enough creativity involved.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#127
post #80
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, that's good to hear. But now I need suggestions and feedback... In a previous thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24220858 I've suggested the following: 13.8. $COMPANY and any Group Company will not attempt to claim copyright, intellectual property rights, nor patent right to any creation done outside of working hours (also known as employees free time), outside of the premises, and not using any $COMPANY…

Got to watch out with this one. My past experience is that even approving a PR on the company Wifi internet caused a lot of discussion regarding the use of company facilities

Company WiFi falls under their "equipment"/"facilities" as far as I'm concerned and it's fair for the company to be upset about you using it for your personal benefit in my opinion.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#128
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but here's the exact words from the contract: >You will give the Company full written details of all Inventions and of all works embodying Intellectual Property Rights made wholly or partially by You at any time during the course of Your Employment (whether or not during working hours or using Company premises or resources) which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of the Compa…

This is great, Thank You! "which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of the Company or any Group Company" sounds like a good phrasing to me, especially the "business" part of it as I interpret it to be the company simply wanting you to not build a competing product while employed there (a fair thing to have in a contract). For reference, this is what my last contract had: https://news.…

Please be really careful about that kind of phrasing. If you work for a large organisation, it might be doing work on almost anything somewhere in the org and you might not even know that work exists. And yet now if your own project that is entirely unrelated to your own role and work for the employer can be linked to that other work you didn't even know about, your employer owns everything.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#129
post #40
post #4

Here in Russia Rambler tried to do the same with nginx, and they failed to achieve their goals. I don't know, it creates nothing but bad publicity without giving anything in return considering they won't maintain it anyway if the core devs leave (and nothing stops them from forking and creating their commercial solution right now). The image of Rambler before: "Igor Sysoev created nginx while working at Rambler" (pos…

Isn't it so that if the employee published the code under lets say gpl license but the company acquired the rights, the company can reserve the rights and the code cannot be forked

That largely depends whether others contributed, and whether they assigned copyright.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#130

As an employee, I’ve managed to evade these clauses by negotiating them as early as possible in the interview process. With smaller companies, it hasn’t really been as difficult as I expected. However, my local laws provide some additional protection against this type of thing. I didn’t even realize it until I consulted with a lawyer who pointed out that my state’s laws don’t allow companies to claim IP generated in…

Can you share what state law provides this protection?
Post reply on HN