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Google claims copyright on employee side projects

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Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#301

Post by tripzilch »

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…

What I learned about IP rights in uni, it also works like that in the Netherlands. But I'm not sure if bosses are difficult about it in practice. The one time it was relevant for me, I gave my boss a heads up and it was fine.

It's how the law works so it applies automatically. It has to be the same type of work, though. But one example of that was a webdeveloper building a website for his local sports team.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#302

Post by coldtea »

tytso wrote: post #95

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". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

>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".

Whatever something is "standard industry practice" and whatever its outrageous and should be stopped and called for what it is, is orthogonal.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#303

Post by reroute1 »

Mirioron wrote: post #274
katet wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without diving into the ins-and-outs of this, my current contract contains a claim like this. Well outside the US, and the UK/EU - it's in South East Asia. It says something like "on company equipment" and/or "reasonably related to skills/knowledge gained or applicable during employment with the company". So I wouldn't quite quote this as being US imperialism. I seem to recall similar clauses in my previous contracts…

> reasonably related to skills/knowledge gained or applicable during employment with the company Let's imagine that you didn't know how to read and write before being employed at that company. If you learn how to read and write during your employment then the company owns rights to anything you write? And they own the rights to anything you make that requires reading too. This clause essentially tells the employee to…

Let's not imagine a ridiculous hypothetical where someone gets a job without knowing how to read. That doesn't make any sense as an analogy. Learning how to read is not any domain specific skill anyway, if you work for a pharmaceutical company they don't give a shit if you write, unless you are spilling company secrets.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#304

Post by throwaway2048 »

tytso wrote: post #95

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". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

"standard industry practice" is a gross cop-out for a lot of really, really vile behavior.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#305

Post by walshemj »

q3k wrote: post #114
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…

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.

Actually its UK law that this descends from and it is only "related" works. If you where a semi pro musician google would not own the rights to your song's for example.

And it not copyright they "own" it - I suspect the tweeter is confused between intellectual property and copyright

Germany has this http://www.mondaq.com/germany/x/645260/Patent/Artificial+Int...) which is similar its probably EU countries relay on statutory law and don't explicity put it into the contract so you would never know

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#306

Post by ummonk »

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…

It's illegal in California as well (as the Twitter poster discovered when he actually examined the CA labor code).

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#307

Post by ddevault »

tytso wrote: post #95

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". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

I'm astonished that I came to this thread and the top comment was a lengthy defense of Google. This behavior is absolutely unacceptable. "Standard industry practice" my ass. This is literally the "if your friends all jumped off of a bridge" argument. It's not okay for Google, and it's not okay for everyone else. Many wrongs don't make a right. I shouldn't need your permission to be creative on my own time. Employees do not exist to give their lives in service of your giant capitalist machine. Employers have zero claim to any IP generated in the employee's own time using the employee's own resources - end of story.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#308

Post by lovich »

reroute1 wrote: post #303
Mirioron wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reasonably related to skills/knowledge gained or applicable during employment with the company Let's imagine that you didn't know how to read and write before being employed at that company. If you learn how to read and write during your employment then the company owns rights to anything you write? And they own the rights to anything you make that requires reading too. This clause essentially tells the employee to…

Let's not imagine a ridiculous hypothetical where someone gets a job without knowing how to read. That doesn't make any sense as an analogy. Learning how to read is not any domain specific skill anyway, if you work for a pharmaceutical company they don't give a shit if you write, unless you are spilling company secrets.

I don't know. Lots of people learn to write different kinds of code at work. I also think writing code isn't domain specific as I've never worked in the same industry twice over 6+ jobs.

Seems pretty comparable

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#309

Post by reroute1 »

danShumway wrote: post #188
tytso wrote: post #95

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". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

It's absurd for any company to say they're going to attract passionate programmers, and then expect them to just roll over and give up projects that were started before they even joined at the company. If you're Google, you can get away with this because you just throw so much money at people that they're willing to temporarily put their life on hold for 3-4 years. But for any other company, people who are genuinely…

> I would never, ever join a company that didn't (in writing) allow me to retain ownership of my side projects.

OK that's fine, but doesn't everyone have this choice? Apparently google attracts thousands of top engineers with this clause. Lots of people agree to it, just because you won't doesn't mean it's absurd. Maybe you are absurd for calling google and their ideas absurd.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#310

Post by reroute1 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #122
tytso wrote: post #95

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". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

> 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". ... So anyone who think this is some evidence of Google being, or becoming, evil is either seriously misinformed, or just engaging in unthinking hate of Google, or both. The fact that every other US company is as evil does not make Google any better. The practice is…

Right, every company in an entire country is evil. You don't sound horribly biased at all
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