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

Comments In Line

>Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 16:52:11 EDT
>From: MacWheel99@aol.com
>Subject: Re: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?

<snip>
>> 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?

The fact that I wrote it means that I own it, as long as I am not working for 
you in
an emplorer/employee basis.  It doesn't matter who's machine it was written on 
or
where.  Just who.  A program/story/painting is a work of art (or so the 
copyright
laws apply to) and as such, it is the talent of the "artist" that is being 
protected.

>> 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?

I'm trying to understand your question here, as it doesn't seem to be directed
at the statement I had made, unless it was about the aside that it may infact 
belong
to my company even if I wrote it at home.

On that note, I remember reading about a case that went to trial about someone
who was a salaried employee who wrote a program at home, and the company
sued the employee for the copyright, claiming that since the employee was in a
salaried position, anything of that nature that the employee did while in the 
companies
employ belonged to the company.  The company won.  Even though the employee
used his own home computer and own time and own compiler.  Yes, I think that's
bogus too.

If your asking for clarificaion on the work for hire, if I write a program for 
you that
I would normally own the copyright to being the arthur, no matter where it's 
done
I must sign a paper over to you stating that it was a "Work For Hire" and that 
you
infact own the copyright, not me.  This is not the same as selling the 
copyright,
however, as different laws apply to that.

>> 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.

Huh?

<SNIP>

Regards,

Jim Langston

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