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The Sex Tape Litmus Test

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Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#11

Post by mistercow »

wyuenho wrote: post #4
guard-of-terra wrote: post #2

I think that any funny clauses in the contracts should be abolished and the worker/employer relations should only be regulated by law. This makes me pro-regulation and anti-market, but unfortunately I see exactly zero ways in which market can make contracts better. What are you expected to do in this situation - quit?

Collective bargaining rights was developed to counter exactly this power imbalance with minimum government involvement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any programmer unions.

What's odd to me is that in many cases people who purport to be "pro free market" are also anti-union. As far as I can see, unions are the free market.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#12

Post by pretoriusB »

sskates wrote: post #6
guard-of-terra wrote: post #2

I think that any funny clauses in the contracts should be abolished and the worker/employer relations should only be regulated by law. This makes me pro-regulation and anti-market, but unfortunately I see exactly zero ways in which market can make contracts better. What are you expected to do in this situation - quit?

Yes, you can quit and work somewhere else. Also you can read about what Sony does on Hacker News and decide not to apply there for a job in the first place. I really hope you are not actually against customized employment contracts- there are a lot of cases where they can be useful. What might be better is prohibiting instances of terms you find offensive. For example, California's moonlighting law, which effectively…

>Yes, you can quit and work somewhere else.

As if people always have that luxury. What if most companies in your field (e.g computer games) follow similar practices? "Go work at another field"? Why fell prey and bow down, looking for work elsewhere, and not try to change the system instead?

If a company didn't allow black or gay employees would that be acceptable, and people be told to just "work somewhere else"? I think not, people would revolt and try to change the laws so that the company cannot do that. Why should BS NDAs be any different?

People forget that:

a) we're not necessarily talking about the top 1% of employees companies fight over, but also for the rest 99% of the people, that don't have an upper hand in negotiations and don't always have the luxury of moving around, staying out of a job long enough to find a better one, etc.

b) we're not necessarily talking about a "seller's market" such as programming

c) even if we did (b), we're not necessarily talking about now and the Valley, but also about times and places where unemployment is rampant.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#13

Post by jiggy2011 »

pretoriusB wrote: post #9
jiggy2011 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure a one-size-fits all regulated solution is the answer. For example , what about a startup that wants to make signing of an NDA a requirement for employment? Would they be expected to just take it on trust that a new employee isn't leaking stuff to their competitors for cash? What about employments that might deal with highly sensitive/classified information and thus require certain background checks to be…

> Would they be expected to just take it on trust that a new employee isn't leaking stuff to their competitors for cash? Well, make that punishable by law, and no need for an NDA.

How?

Pass a law forbidding anybody from talking about what they did at work that day including to their family or friends?

The majority of jobs don't really require any real secrecy thus one size fits all fails.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#14

Post by pretoriusB »

mistercow wrote: post #11
wyuenho wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective bargaining rights was developed to counter exactly this power imbalance with minimum government involvement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any programmer unions.

What's odd to me is that in many cases people who purport to be "pro free market" are also anti-union. As far as I can see, unions are the free market.

Well, "pro free market" is usually (and silently) taken to mean "whatever benefit me as an employeer and screw the workers".

As in: "if I want to have people working 20 hours per day, with no overtime for less than minimum wage, I should be FREE to do so, and people are FREE not to work for me".

That's the kind of "FREE" the free market stands for usually.

Of course, when all employers follow the same idea, or when people are desperate to find any work to survive (e.g because of a lack of jobs in their city), the latter point about "choice" becomes moot.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#15

Post by nakkiel »

IP assignment is the only thing I really negotiate when I take on a new position. I had one company back-pedal as they were trying to change their terms from nothing to we own anything you make, any time. I had the CEO/CTO of another company write in plain English that anything done in my free time and without using company-owned facilities/hardware was my own IP (their legal bla-bla was unclear).

In the first case, the corrected terms got applied to everybody in the company but in the second, I believe I'm the only one who is protected thank to that written note.

I always use the analogy of an English teacher writing a book on his spare time. How he would actually be encouraged to do so, weighting how this would reflect nicely on the school he works at etc..

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#16

Post by mgkimsal »

mistercow wrote: post #11
wyuenho wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collective bargaining rights was developed to counter exactly this power imbalance with minimum government involvement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any programmer unions.

What's odd to me is that in many cases people who purport to be "pro free market" are also anti-union. As far as I can see, unions are the free market.

I've thought that too. The difference seems to be that in general, an entire workforce in a company is either 'union' or 'non-union'. In places I've worked in that had unions, you didn't have a choice as to whether you wanted to join or not - you want the job, you join the union. At the macro-level, perhaps 'the market' for labor has said "union", but the choice is not there for the individual to join or not.

I took at job in a grocery store where the union was on strike - the only reason I didn't have to join the union was because they were striking and I was working directly for the corporate HQ. Pay wasn't bad, though I suspect they were having to pay more to get us scabs to come in through the picket lines :)

I'd prefer union places where you could elect to join the union or not. If they actually lobbied for better conditions for union members, and got those, there'd be more incentive to join - you'd be making the union mgrs work for their jobs, essentially.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#17

Post by jiggy2011 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #10

I've brought this up as the "child porn" clause, and had brought it up in an employment contract once many years ago. Basic language was "we own anything you create". I said "I don't really think you want that - if I create some child porn, you're the owners". I seem to remember I had some less restrictive language placed in my contract vs that one, but I don't think it made a change to anyone else's contracts. Yes,…

IANAL , but I believe in this case the offence would be in the creation and distribution of this content not necessarily in owning the IP.

Otherwise you could technically make the same argument about instagram for example.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#18

Post by pretoriusB »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #13
pretoriusB wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would they be expected to just take it on trust that a new employee isn't leaking stuff to their competitors for cash? Well, make that punishable by law, and no need for an NDA.

How? Pass a law forbidding anybody from talking about what they did at work that day including to their family or friends? The majority of jobs don't really require any real secrecy thus one size fits all fails.

>Pass a law forbidding anybody from talking about what they did at work that day including to their family or friends?

Yes. Pass a law forbidding anybody from talking about what they did at work, including to their family or friends, if they are warned by the company that their work is confidential.

Then let a jury decide if they violated that.

If you work at a McDonalds, they need not tell you to keep confidential about anything. If you work at Apple, they can tell you: "no telling to anyone outside of what we do here".

No silly clauses about "all IP you create" and stuff.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#19

Post by pretoriusB »

cracell wrote: post #5
guard-of-terra wrote: post #2

I think that any funny clauses in the contracts should be abolished and the worker/employer relations should only be regulated by law. This makes me pro-regulation and anti-market, but unfortunately I see exactly zero ways in which market can make contracts better. What are you expected to do in this situation - quit?

Negotiate for the removal of these clauses from your contract and don't sign it if they won't remove them. Sometimes this may mean passing on a job but if everyone did this then employers wouldn't try to get away with it.

>Negotiate for the removal of these clauses from your contract and don't sign it if they won't remove them. Sometimes this may mean passing on a job but if everyone did this then employers wouldn't try to get away with it.

The problem is that the effectiveness of this relies on the bargaining power of the employees, which, in a "buyer's market" is not that much.

Better to get the law to change to forbid such abuses for everyone.

Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test

#20

Post by endianswap »

dsr_ wrote: post #3

The primary function of a legal department is to provide advice that prevents legally actionable mistakes. This advice does not have to be sane, or efficient, or indeed have any consideration towards the interests of the company other than "prevents legally actionable mistakes". A few days ago HN saw an article about setting goals and perverse incentives. This is a simple example. Hypothetically, someone was reviewin…

Do typical BigCorps require re-signing your contract during the review process? Neither of the ~300 person tech companies I've worked for have had me sign anything past the first day.
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