Re: MIDRANGE-L Digest V3 #319

I have a little understanding on the copyright law from my own research.

The company you are employed by is the owner of the copyright, because
you are employed by them and writing it for them.  (The law is a little 
different
if you write a program for someone who is not your employer, however.  In
that case you must sign a document stating it is a work for hire and giving the
other person the copyright).

This being said, what rights do you have to the source code?  The copyright
laws state that the copyright owner has allrights to all works made from the
copywritten material, and may not be copied or shown, with a few exceptions.
The main exception being a portion, or snippet if you will, can be shown
for various perposes, the main one being to show the type of copywritten
material it is (I forget the term used).  I think showing a *small section* of
the code to a prospective emplorer would fall into this clause, and would
be legal, as far as the copywrite law is concerned, as long as it was not
a significant portion of the program.  I also feel this would be ethical.

But, you then can get into other legal and moral issues.  Such as, have you
signed a non disclosure agreement?  Are there any trade secrets in the
code snippet you are showing?  And so on.  Generic type code, however,
should not be a problem.

Now, all this is stated with the understanding that I am by no means a lawyer,
nor even a lawyer type.  This is just my understanding from what I read on the
copyright law itself, and case law on copyright issues (I was doing research
on the "Work For Hire" clause of the copyright law, I wanted to know how to
give away the copywrite for a program I was writing for someone).

Regards,

Jim Langston

- -----Original Message-----
From: Nathan M. Andelin [mailto:nathanma@haaga.com]
Sent: May 23, 2000 9:49 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?


Is it illegal for a programmer to use source code he was employed to write?
Is it unethical?  For example, should a programmer be able show some of his
past source code to a prospective future employer?

I feel this question is appropriate for the people on this list because it
affects so many of us.  In asking, however, I have two fears.  The first is
apathy - most of you have probably never needed to assert yourselves on this
issue.  Second, some of you may feel uncomfortable sharing your opinion in a
public forum.  For example, an employer who is highly dependent on a skilled
programmer may not want to risk offending his employee by asserting that the
employee should have no rights to his work.  On the other hand, an employee
may not want to offend an employer, or may feel uncomfortable saying he
ought to have rights even though the law does not support that view.

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