Re: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?

[MacWheel99@xxxxxxx]

I have lived & worked by a code of ethics that I am free to take work from 
the office home with me ... for example I go out to lunch & am scribbling on 
a program while at the restaurant ... the work product does not belong to me 
or the restaurant but rather to the company paying my salary ... it does not 
matter WHERE I am working on this because I am on a payroll to do 
programming.  Sometimes I take work products with me to IBM school to ask 
questions about some techniques, error messages, or "how can we do this." 
then work on the program before getting back to the office.

Now it might be more complicated if I had two jobs, both of them doing 
similar programming.

> Jim jlangston@conexfreight.com writes:

> If I go home at write a program
>  for you for your computer, who owns the copyright?  I do.  (Some people
>  could argue, and it has gone to court, that my company does since I am a
>  salaried employee, but we'll put that aside for now). 

What makes it you own it ... the fact the software got written on a computer 
that you own, or the fact that you are doing this in your apartment or 
private home?  Does this mean that employee programmers who telecommute need 
contracts that are more extensive than employees who only work at the office? 

> I must write a contract specifically stating it was a Work For Hire 
> and that the copywrite belongs to you.  
> This is even different than if I sold you the copyright.  If I sold you
>  the copyright in a number of years I can get it back without paying (I 
think
>  it's 15 or 20 years).  In a Work For Hire, however, the copyright is yours
>  alone, and I can't get it back without you giving it to me.

Are you talking about the scenario in which a friend wants a computer game or 
some other software & I am writing something that will be installed on their 
PC, or are you talking about the scenario in which I have a project at work, 
where I use a green screen twinax termianl & I want to look up some internet 
resources on programming techniques that are not available from the manuals 
at the office, so I need to use my home PC to surf the internet, or 
alternatively a telecommunting scenario, if I had PC ANYWHERE and was at home 
while developing software for my employer, then transferring it from home PC 
work product to work site?

> Now, a subcontractor, however, is not a part of the corporate entity, so any
>  work they do falls under the Work For Hire clause.

And of course the IRS regulations on what a company has to do with an 
employee vs. outside worker complicates the options available to this whole 
area.

>  From:    nathanma@haaga.com (Nathan M. Andelin)

>  If you take a statistical sampling of programmers, and empower them with
>  rights to their creations (actual ownership), then the quantity, quality,
>  and creativity of their work will be substantially higher on average than 
an
>  equivalent group of individuals who hold no rights to their creations.

Yes, but then we might be spending a lot of time trying to market what we 
own, and less time creating it.

>  But the huge disparity between what the law provides employees vs.
>  independent contractors is a puzzle to me.  

The difference is quite simple.  The independent contractor has an employer 
... it might be the same person as the contractor, or it may be a firm with 
many consultants.  Whatever work is done by the contractor is the property of 
the employer of the contractor, which is the vendor that the end customer has 
contracted with to do the work.

Does this mean that if I own a home, and I contract with some outfit to come 
in & design something for me & do some remodeling ... that all belongs to the 
outfit that is doing it, not to the owner of the home?  Well, I think the 
laws vary on whether the material is copyrightable & computer copyable as 
opposed to being in some other form, which is another reason why the physcal 
tools & scrap of building contractors was a bad analogy.  I suspect that like 
software licensing, we have the right to use what the architect designed, but 
not the right to sell it in competition with the creator.

> From: corbett@asresources.com (William A.(Tony) Corbett)
>  
>  What are a carpenter's rights to the houses he builds?  Bragging rights
>  and the ability to reuse the techniques he learns.  If he builds a new
>  tool, he can use that anywhere he likes, but he can't have my new
>  porch...

The ability to reuse techniques is at issue when the techniques come in a 
package of software that the employer has signed a contract, on behalf of all 
employees, not to disclose, and we rarely read the fine print, until a 
dispute arises over whether the company is to be allowed to move the software 
onto replacement hardware without paying another chunk of money.

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor
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