In case anyone is in a position to hire programmers and cares about treating creative people fairly, we have an open source Hacker Employment Contract: https://www.docracy.com/hackercontract that tries to fairly handle stuff like IP created after hours.
The Sex Tape Litmus Test
51–60 of 138 posts
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'm with you, though you're fighting a pointless battle on HN, a great bastion of the privileged who don't even know their own privilege. They are young, male, predominantly white with knowledge that is (almost always) accidentally gained in a field of absurdly high demand.
99.9% of the world doesn't have the leverage we do. The amount of clucking and tsk-tsk-ing HNers do at the rest of the world is sickening.
This entire "well duh, quit" argument is the employment equivalent of "let them eat cake".
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#53In case anyone is in a position to hire programmers and cares about treating creative people fairly, we have an open source Hacker Employment Contract: https://www.docracy.com/hackercontract that tries to fairly handle stuff like IP created after hours.
Thanks for posting this. Standard documents are great. Even if you don't get to use them they provide a point of reference for negotiating terms.
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#54Note. The contract, as described , would not hold for California employees.
See http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab... if you don't know what I'm talking about.
(That said, Sony probably does enough different things that the difference does not matter much to most people.)
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#55Earlier 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.
Most people claiming to be "pro free market" still oppose cartels. A cartel is the banding together of multiple companies or parties in an agreement to work together to raise prices.
A union is a cartel. I don't mean that in as a normative statement. Unions may still be worth having, even if they are a cartel in that they workers band together to raise what they charge for their labor.
But, that is the logic by which many "free market" advocates oppose unions.
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's odd for you to point out one of the legal protections unions have without also pointing out the things they are prohibited from doing, such as sympathy strikes, mass picketing, and (in some states) the ability to require a union shop. And the law gives company owners protection against personal liability, and taxes companies different from personal income, while it also prohibits employers from having an unsafe…
A union: some sellers of labor merge into a single legal entity, and it becomes illegal for some purchasers of labor to buy from alternate suppliers. To translate to another field: Apple and MS merge, and now consumers can't use Linux. Laws enforcing a requirement to purchase from a cartel are about as far from a free market as you can get. Saying free market supporters should favor unionization is like saying free m…
"A union: some sellers of labor merge into a single legal entity, and it becomes illegal for some purchasers of labor to buy from alternate suppliers."
I have seen references to this many times. Is this true in the States? I was once a teacher (not in the States) and did not have to sign up to any union. Apart from lawyers and medical personel and maybe a few other "special" professions you don't have to belong to a union to offer your services - at least here in the EU.
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
A union: some sellers of labor merge into a single legal entity, and it becomes illegal for some purchasers of labor to buy from alternate suppliers. To translate to another field: Apple and MS merge, and now consumers can't use Linux. Laws enforcing a requirement to purchase from a cartel are about as far from a free market as you can get. Saying free market supporters should favor unionization is like saying free m…
"A union: some sellers of labor merge into a single legal entity, and it becomes illegal for some purchasers of labor to buy from alternate suppliers." I have seen references to this many times. Is this true in the States? I was once a teacher (not in the States) and did not have to sign up to any union. Apart from lawyers and medical personel and maybe a few other "special" professions you don't have to belong to a…
Yes. It is illegal for the employer to fire union workers and replace them with non-union workers. It is illegal to hire new workers at wages lower than the union wage, and in many states to even hire non-union workers.
Unionization is by employer, not by profession, though a few professions (e.g. managers) do lack the ability to gain legal protections by unionizing.
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#58California has a nice law that says that the employee owns IP created on his own time, unrelated to work, etc. This is a reason I moved to CA: the state I was in lacked such a law, and all the tech companies had contracts that failed the sex tape test. I suspect that for a place to flourish like Silicon Valley, it needs a law that protects self bootstrapping startups.
I guess the "unrelated to work" might be a point of debate once you create IP of high value.
In fact, in Germany we have the "Arbeitnehmererfindungsgesetz (ARBNERFG)" [1] which stipulates that your employer has first right to all patents and inventions related to your work, even if you create them in your spare time. The basic reasoning is that your employer supplies you with all tools and ressources required for the invention in question. It would be way too easy to just clock out, return to your desk and a minute later write down the world formula and sell it for billions. You're entitled to a compensation though.
The law looks a little stupid when applied to computer science but makes much more sense in a research or engineering context.
[1] I just adore german legal terms.
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#59The 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…
As with most departments, legal works on a continuum.
Some coders push buggy code and some coders polish their bits endlessly. The good ones write code that meet the requirements in a reasonable amount of time and move on to the next task.
Some lawyers are strict letter-of-the-law types and some will approve anything to make the profit centers happy. The good ones balance the legal risks with the commercial reality.
Under the circumstances I'd be curious to know what the cost-benefit analysis of this change might look like. Given how seldom employment contracts are negotiated and how rarely these IP clauses are enforced, my guess is the biggest cost might be something even more intangible, such as stifled employee creativity.
Re: The Sex Tape Litmus Test
#60California has a nice law that says that the employee owns IP created on his own time, unrelated to work, etc. This is a reason I moved to CA: the state I was in lacked such a law, and all the tech companies had contracts that failed the sex tape test. I suspect that for a place to flourish like Silicon Valley, it needs a law that protects self bootstrapping startups.
I keep hearing this, and have taken it as gospel (I am in CA), but can someone point me to some citations? You know, just in case.... ;-)
Hi. Here's your link:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab...
2870 is what you're most interested in. IANAL, this is my lay understanding of the law.