Does society accept this behaviour outside tech? Imagine that a Michelin restaurant would claim copyright on the dishes cooked by the chef in his spare time. Or that the big farm would ask for a piece of those carrots grown in the back yard.
I was in a similar situation where I had an idea for a similar product the company I worked for was toying around but was not able to implement. In the end I quit, waited a few month and then implemented it, just to be sure.
There's an entire law about inventions made in your on and off time - the "Gesetz über Arbeitnehmererfindungen". It does cover inventions (patents or similar) that are related to your work, whether done during your work time or outside. (https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__4.html)
The law stipulates compensation and there's a separate set of compensation guidelines that takes into account how related to your work this invention is.
An employer can even claim right of first buy for inventions that are unrelated to the employees work (freie Erfindung), if the employer is active in the area of business that the invention covers (see https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/arbnerfg/__19.html)
Mind you, this is by law. Many employment contracts will only mention this in passing or not at all.
Now, most contributions to open source will not pass the bar to be an invention in the sense of the law. But if you come up with a novel solution for a hard problem, that might cross the boundaries.
Not a Michelin restaurant, but apparently Outback Steakhouse makes that exact claim.
"Inventions, Ideas, Processes, and Designs. All inventions, ideas, recipes, processes, programs, software, and designs ...conceived or made by Employee during the course of Employee’s employment with the Employer (whether or not actually conceived during regular business hours) and for a period..."
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/874691/0001193125081...
Seems reasonable for the President of the company. Do they make waiters and line cooks sign a similar contract?
Almost all large employers will make all employees (even the janitor) sign an ownership of inventions agreement as a condition of employment.
Here's an example of such an agreement from a pharmaceutical company I found (section 2.3 and 2.4): https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1245104/000119312512...
See also: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... for an explanation of why this is.
You can get around this or have the contracts modified if you have good representation, but most artists don’t or can’t afford to. I also know for a fact that studios use these clauses to mine and steal ideas from struggling artists.
IMO, America is far too biased overall towards employer versus employee rights and this is a problem in a lot of fields.
Google's stance is on the aggressive end of things, but that's where the California law is coming from.
Google isn't alone in this. Plenty of other companies have the same clauses. They already know these clauses have consequences but they are trying to address real fears / visible threats of their own.
All that said, <humor style=wry> I'm fairly sure unionisation and other reactive responses such as further government red tape wont bother them at all. </humor>
Nobody would accept underwear with a build in camera, gps tracker and a microphone wo give the data to x companys. But with a cellphone (almost) everybody is ok. Also if something goes wrong with software, it's the customers problem. The customer accepted the contract with no rights for him (software AS IS, no warranty), nobody would accept a such contract in the "real" world.
That's only specific to FOSS.
There are some cases of of selling products without much in the way of guarantees. Something you buy on eBay AS IS is pretty much only warrantied to be as described.
Recipes are not copyrightable in the US. [1] Otherwise, you might see exactly this.
But 'duty to report' is not the same as 'everything you do is ours'.
The duty to report sounds more like "you are not allowed to have another job next to this one unless you get approval". Which in some cases is logical: an employer wants you to be on your A-game, but if you work 2 other jobs you might be tired all day and not deliver any good work.
>> that you don’t decide what’s in direct competition. That decides a lawyer
No. If in doubt a court decides it, not an encroaching law department -- but nobody wants that to happen so everyone silences themselves beforehand...
Just one more reason for me never to be employed by a company with more than 150 employees
Physical property is very different. Your employer cannot claim your carrot or tomato crop in your home garden.
Ultimately, you’re better off with terms like this if you’re working with a big company. If you have permission to do a side project, your are without risk. If you don’t, or your employer doesn’t have a clear policy, there is always the risk that they’ll come out of the woodwork and claim some piece of the action.
> Does society accept this behavior outside of the restaurant world? Imagine Google claiming copyright on a website made during an employee’s spare time.
So in my mind, the equivalent would be using your learned cooking skills for another restaurant while working at a Michelin restaurant. They both serve food (competing or related industry), but while the dishes are different, the techniques to create them come from the same source.
I wouldn't expect a Michelin restaurant to stop someone cooking in their spare time, just that they can't copy their exact dishes in part or full and compete with them.
Those are three very different kinds of temporary monopolies granted by the government, but the people who promote the phrase "intellectual property" want them to be considered as not a government-granted monopoly on a certain kind of business, but as a natural form of property comparable to physical property, which it really isn't.
No. Intellectual property is property.
One cannot "own" an idea, but one can own a copyright; copyright (along with trademark and patent) is a form of IP.
No. "Intellectual Property" is an umbrella term for some very different concepts -- copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets (maybe I'm forgetting some).
You can't copyright an idea, but you might be able to patent it. It's only intellectual property if you do.
The European Commission even published a document trying to 'reinterpret' the meaning of IP, they ended up redefining what was 'intellectual property' by making their own maximalist list of rights, including the ones that don't exist yet.
Everybody is allowed to have more than one job if they please. It‘s just that software ‚creations‘ outside of work are trying to be owned by the (main) employer company.
In my country, it's generally illegal to work for a company also work for a competitor. It's a breach of the duty of loyalty to your employer.
Many US employers require you to disclose your side projects (even those you start before joining them). My current employer requires I also tell them of any other business entities I have a relationship with (even unrelated to my job). This then informs them of what IP/consulting fees they can go after if they want to. This is essentially what the Russian Rambler / Nginx issue is claiming to.
It's not fair, just another big corporate overreach because employees have, in the past, made products that might complete, or using work-related IP (including consulting, which leverages work-related knowledge), or using work equipment... and corps lobbied and litigated to essentially soften any defense an employee can claim to retain ownership
If you have some knowledge worker-type job, your company is highly unlikely to have any problem if you make some pottery on the weekends and sell it. [Although I have no doubt there are overreaching employee agreements.] But even companies with pretty liberal employment contracts around IP, open source contributions, etc. are quite likely to have a problem if you set yourself up as a consultant on the side in a way that's either competitive or a conflict of interest.
This is the default for employed persons in Canada, to some extent: anything you publish could be considered the property of your employer.
In the U.S. I believe this is typically done by agreement, and most companies include it in employment contracts, that I've seen.
The special thing here is how long Google has waited before springing this behaviour on their employees, Google seems to be scheduling all the betrayal into one year, maybe so they don't have to address all of it properly.
Huh? This has been a company policy of theirs for a long time. OP’s post is not about recent actions.
this is recent but in design, i read that companies can now own branding colors and themes.