Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

philip1209 wrote: post #3

Something like this happened in St. Louis. The community protested, and they ended up canceling the hackathon. Details here: https://www.philipithomas.com/stl-hackathon-canceled-after-s...

... as it should be...

Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

#5

Post by natch » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 7:52 PM UTC

"You are probably thinking about it too hard." That CIO who said that should be fired.

Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

#6

Post by sergiotapia » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 7:56 PM UTC

Granted I've only participated in 3 hackathons but the times I went I just walked in and found a cool thing to work on. I didn't have to sign anything or pay a cent.

Is this sort of legalese normal in the US for hackathons?

Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

#7

Post by minimaxir » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 7:57 PM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #2

You had to pay a fee? To create things for free?

Hackathons are not free to run at any significant scale. (especially when prizes are involved)

Usually, the costs are covered by sponsors, and I can't find any indication that there were sponsors for this event.

EDIT: Comment is incorrect; there were sponsors, see child comment.

Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

#8

Post by vinay427 » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #6

Granted I've only participated in 3 hackathons but the times I went I just walked in and found a cool thing to work on. I didn't have to sign anything or pay a cent. Is this sort of legalese normal in the US for hackathons?

At university hackathons I have been to there's usually a short waiver covering liability and sometimes ownership. Nothing very extensive compared to many legal contracts these days, but I would say that given the rather litigious culture in the US these sorts of papers are justified. The one mentioned in this article definitely sounds more troubling, however.

Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

#9

Post by databound » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 8:03 PM UTC

Wow, this is out of control... so I make an app at the hackathon... the city of Detroit gets full rights then someone uses the app and dies or gets hurt and they sue the original programmer meanwhile, the city owns it and uses it 100%.

This is out of control!

Re: Hack4Detroit's indemnification clause

#10

Post by bthornbury » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 8:05 PM UTC

You had to pay $20 and then you find the tranfer of IP to the city reasonable? I understand these things aren't cheap to run, but there's no shortage of sponsors looking to get involved for various reasons.

Paying to make software for someone else seems entirely unreasonable and in bad taste in the organizers part.