RE: Work product (was RE: Midrange Knowledge test)

"Nothing sterilizes like sunlight"

Under any circumstances I would think one would want to keep an employer
informed and allow him to say yea or nay.    Trying to skirt the law in a
clandestine way leaves one open to questions of integrity and ethics.

My experience is that some places don't mind us working on our own stuff on
lunch break or after hours while other shops are very nervous about it.  In
any event I always show them what I did before I show anyone else.  If they
re nervous about it I delete it and take a different tack. 

Besides, now there are plenty of cheap/free places to have our own account. 
 
 
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: 01/01/04 07:45:06
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Work product (was RE: Midrange Knowledge test)
 
Another consideration is how much of the code you're working with/developing
is copyrighted.  Copyright law is Federal and covers "derivative works" as
well.
 
The absence of a "work for hire" agreement means little if your employer
sells a package with copyrighted code.  So, if you're cloning an existing
report (we still have reports in the Brave New World, right?), stripping out
"file" I/O, and replacing it with SQL, don't take a copy of the changed
program because it's still copyrighted as a derivative work even if you
delete the copyright notice.
 
-reeve
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steve Landess
> Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 9:01 PM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: Work product (was RE: Midrange Knowledge test)
>
> > > Steve Landess wrote:
> >  >3)  Many if not most companies would *not* give you permission to take
> > >copies of code that you wrote.
>
> > Then Tom wrote:
>
> > midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> > Last time I seriously checked, admittedly some ten years ago, _most_
> > companies didn't have the right to stop you. My current position is with
> > a software firm and therefore what I write here for the products is
> > definitely owned and controlled by the company.
> >
> > But that has not been true for any other company or organization I've
> > worked for in the past 25+ years, that includes Packard Bell-NEC.
> > Because what I wrote at PB-NEC was standard business function rather
> > than marketable product, both sides had non-exclusive rights.
> >
> > I'm certainly interested in what current law might say.
>
> Tom,
> In the absence of a written contract specifying otherwise, you're right.
I
> believe the U.S. Uniform Commercial Code does give both sides
non-exclusive
> rights.  My response was based on the fact that:
>
> 1)  More often than not, as a full-time employee, a condition of
employment
> was  that I was required to sign an agreement that essentially gave all
> rights of ownership in any software I created to my employer.  Of course,
> they can't take away what's in your head...it's simple enough to recreate
a
> program for a new employer from scratch using the ideas that gave birth to
> the original, unless you also signed a non-compete agreement that
precluded
> such.
>
> 2) Likewise, while working as a consultant for the last 16 years, many
times
> I have signed agreements that gave all ownership rights to the client -
> several of them being Fortune 200 companies.  It didn't matter to me - I
was
> getting paid by the hour, not for the intellectual property I was
creating.
>
> Steve
> _______________________________________________