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

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

#61

Post by bjornsing »

greatgib wrote: post #25

Here the question is even a little bit more interesting than just the "open source" code you created I think: There is lot of discussion about the ownership of the code, but what about the other things related to the project? Like stars and issues. In no way stars and issues belongs to the company, they belongs to each user that submitted them. They submitted them to the project that was on a specific username. So, I…

If Bumble really wants to cause grief I guess they could file a DMCA takedown request with GitHub once they have secured ownership of the copyright, the argument being they never licensed or released the code themselves.

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

#62

Post by anaisbetts »

_odey wrote: post #50
anaisbetts wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Search for the words "or otherwise" in that block of text. I've had multiple discussions with the legal department at that employer and they refused to remove those words from the text. So it's not enough to just have those phrases in there (as they already are)... 13.4 (c) hereby assign to us by way of future assignment with full title guarantee (insofar as title to them does not automatically vest in $COMPANY as a…

Well of course, I didn't give instructions on how to write a Regular Expression to parse legal contracts, I assumed that OP would still apply the semantic rules of English to his reading

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

#63

Post by jiveturkey »

ealexhudson wrote: post #55
_odey wrote: 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…

Copyright is automatically the employer's in the UK: the term is "in the course of employment", and no contractual language is required. The employer is effectively the author. What that term means is a matter of case law, and is different if you are contracted / self-employed. Typically it is interpreted in a pro-employer manner, and if you are employed to write code then then assume that all the code you write is y…

"in the course of" meaning, related to. personal work on personal time is not 'In the course of" employment. It's that latter bit that the GP is obviously asking about. The contract he linked has especially egegrious language.

It's not worth negotiating IMO. Any employer that even tries to get such language in is showing their cards.

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

#64

Post by _odey »

jiveturkey wrote: post #60
_odey wrote: 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…

Search for 'california assignment of inventions' as well as 'california assignment of inventions template'. The first hit for the latter is currently https://launchtothrive.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Thrive... which has a great exhibit B you can attach. Reword it to reference the CA statute but to be clear that it shall apply to you regardless of residence in CA.

You mean this?

    California Labor Code Section 2870 provides as follows:

    Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:  (1) relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or (2) result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.  To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under California Labor Code Section 2870(a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
Will it be relevant to UK employment too?

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

#65

Post by akvadrako »

_odey wrote: post #57
ealexhudson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright is automatically the employer's in the UK: the term is "in the course of employment", and no contractual language is required. The employer is effectively the author. What that term means is a matter of case law, and is different if you are contracted / self-employed. Typically it is interpreted in a pro-employer manner, and if you are employed to write code then then assume that all the code you write is y…

So does that mean there is literally nothing I can do about it? Except becoming a contractor?

That isn't what he said – just it's the employer's by default. So get a contract that makes your outside work explicitly yours.

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

#66

Post by FpUser »

_odey wrote: 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…

When I got my first programming job in Canada I've already had active product. I have informed them about it and I've also asked them to agree that whatever I am working on in my private time is my property as long as it is not in direct competition and / or not based on employer's code. They did not mind at all.

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

#67

Post by trebligdivad »

_odey wrote: 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…

You need to get something that explicitly says what you want; if you want the freedom to work on one particular open source project then get them to give you that clause; but also thinkw hether you want it more general; It's very difficult because my understanding is you can't even do drive-by fixes in random projects without an OK.

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

#68

Post by some-more-info »

buzzwords wrote: post #37

Does anyone know what is the rational for Bumble to do this?

The rationale is that what other people here are saying - that Bumble (Badoo) should have paid them on company time to contribute to open-source - was already happening.

Bumble owns under the Badoo repository two projects, called badoo/MVI-Core and badoo/RIBs. These libraries are developed on company time by employees, as open-source.

If you check MVIKotlin and Decompose, you'll see that they're conceptually equivalent. You could therefore argue it is, in fact, using company resources.

But badoo/MVI-Core and badoo/RIBs are the two official frameworks written and released by Badoo. Then, what is MVIKotlin and Decompose, and does Badoo own the rights to it - if it was developed on company time, based on pre-existing source code owned by the company?

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

#69

Post by turbinerneiter »

geewee wrote: post #20
turbinerneiter wrote: post #3

Bumble has a wave of abuse incoming. Everyone checking their Twitter account will see a stream of wokeness and be triggered by the discrepancy to their petty evil behaviour. This kind of ignorance is and should be pretty damaging to their brand, although I already sympathize with their poor social media workers who will have to deal with the onslaught.

What does "a stream of wokeness" mean?

It means that every one of their tweets is about a woke topic.

Don't shoot the messenger. It's not my fault that the term was transformed into a toxic ridicule by the right.

When in first learned the term it was in connection with conscious rap and meant people who think and consider important social issues.

Now it's apperantly right wing hate speech.

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

#70

Post by _odey »

akvadrako wrote: post #65
_odey wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So does that mean there is literally nothing I can do about it? Except becoming a contractor?

That isn't what he said – just it's the employer's by default. So get a contract that makes your outside work explicitly yours.

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 facilities, as long as any such creation does not relate to the employees current responsibilities, and as long as it does not directly compete with $COMPANY business model and business activities.

    13.9. As long as you do not go against clause 13.8, you are not obligated to disclose to us your creations.
But this is just my wishful thinking of mine that nobody replied to... and not something that I've actually managed to get written and signed. What I'd like to see is a concrete example of such a clause in a real, existing, signed by both parties, actual contract.
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