221–230 of 339 posts
Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…
I worked for a company once that had this sort of "we own everything" IP clause. They tried to get me to sign it after I had already started. I crossed out that part, initialed the change, and sent it back unsigned. Ended up going back and forth a few times, and then it got dropped behind a desk or something and we all forgot about it. Not surprisingly, I suppose, that company turned out to be a bit of a mess for oth…
While discussing my options with friends and colleagues, I was given the ridiculous advice that I was already bound by the contract just by showing up and that signing it wouldn't make a difference.
Fortunately I disregarded that advice and asked for the clause to be renegotiated, which delayed things by another week, and I received advice (from someone more knowledgeable) that as I'd then worked there for a month, there was an implicit contract, but it bound the company, not me, meaning that I couldn't be fired without cause, which put me in a stronger negotiating position.
Anyway, they ended up accepting a rewording of the clause which meant that only work I produced (in or out of hours) which was relevant to the business could be claimed by them.
Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…
I had a similar situation with my current job, but with a happy ending. The contract was "standard" but others who also read it thoroughly had the same issue with broad, overreaching clauses that essentially attempt to claim complete IP ownership of everything the employee ever touched. The directors were very reasonable and understood my concerns, we eventually managed to remove or reword all of the offending parts.…
Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…
I got one first, read through the contract, saw the standard clause about owning your whole life. I told them it was a deal-breaker if we couldn't get it changed. I got the standard response "oh we never act on that, lots of people here have side-projects", etc. I told them if that was the policy, it needed to be in writing. They escalated internally, talked with legal, etc, but the decision-makers ultimately wouldn't budge. I walked away, and told them in very plain terms that their legal department was responsible for how things turned out.
Shortly afterward I started the process with the second company. Got to the end, saw the clause, told them it was a deal-breaker. Discussed it on multiple calls with different people, eventually the CTO himself who was still reluctant to change it but was sympathetic. Eventually they were able to come back with a contract where that entire section was cut out. I took the offer and it's been a great job so far.
I guess what I'm saying is: hold out. Make a stink about these draconian contracts, and you'll eventually get through and find someone willing to be reasonable. Who knows, if enough people draw a line in the sand maybe it'll become a big enough roadblock that they'll stop putting it in the "standard" contracts.
I worked for a company once that had this sort of "we own everything" IP clause. They tried to get me to sign it after I had already started. I crossed out that part, initialed the change, and sent it back unsigned. Ended up going back and forth a few times, and then it got dropped behind a desk or something and we all forgot about it. Not surprisingly, I suppose, that company turned out to be a bit of a mess for oth…
I also worked for a company with an objectionable IP clause, and because of their general state of disorganisation I didn't actually receive a copy of the contract until after I had been working there for a few weeks. While discussing my options with friends and colleagues, I was given the ridiculous advice that I was already bound by the contract just by showing up and that signing it wouldn't make a difference. For…
IANAL and this is not legal advice. I just had to live through a situation where these distinctions were highly relevant and important.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was the first time I actually came across a clause of this type in an employment contract. I knew of their existence but had never found them in the wild. I sincerely hope enough people refuse to sign those that it becomes a problem for companies. When I go into an employment, I'm agreeing to rent a certain number of hours of my skills to the company's benefit. I'm not agreeing to give the company any kind of co…
We have the same problem with terms of service. Someone wants something (salary, product) and all that registers is “I can have it if I sign/accept”. The only way to fix these things would be for some sort of organization (union) to exist that puts pressure on the industry, or legal simplification/ground rules protecting generally people’s rights.
A note to Bumble, this makes me not want to work for you or anyone who is currently in a related leadership position at Bumble (ie: eng leadership, etc.). Given the lack of supply in engineering the bad publicity is going to cost you more than any miniscule gain. edit: And I don't even publish OSS anymore but if you're willing to go after an employee for something this petty what else would you go after them for.
So from what I understand is that everything I do on conpany property (that includes coding in a pub but on the company laptop) belongs to the company.
So what I do is to first code it (any new idea that I'm working on) at home on my personal setup (including cloud an all). Then I release everything on a Apache V2 + MIT combo with CC BY SA 4 (for pics, vids etc) that I think covers everything.
Then I host it under a github organisation (I am the admin of the org but the code is not hosted directly in my profile). Then I go back to the office next morning and ask one of the junior team members to fork it.
In my head, I'm thinking that yeah well, I wrote something in my personal capacity somewhere and then somebody from the company forked it, so that's not my problem.
So far so good... And the department is too much dependent on me so avoids any confrontation anyway. But I have always wondered, if this is fool proof? Can somebody find any loopholes in this approach and make it better...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you (or anyone) please post it? I'm not even sure what phrase to Google for
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
Bumble gave him a cake for five years service recently, so the company can’t be that bad really. https://twitter.com/arkann1985/status/1446071099989663745?s=... Surely we can overlook the whole “give us your damn open source personal projects copyright grab or you’ll be chewing on big legal problems buddy” thing given the companies generosity with cake? The cake shows that Bumble really are good people. Reminds me of…
They're just fans of portal.