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Comment by throwaway894345 | Hacker News Reader

In fairness, these kinds of "anything you work on belongs to us, whether or not it's related to your work" contracts are not ethical; they aren't things that an ethical, honest corporation would participate in.

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Every company I've worked for in the past 12 years has had a clause like that in the employment agreement. The companies were otherwise ethical, but it seems like more and more of them are adopting this boilerplate. This is in CA where clauses like this are getting more difficult to enforce, but if the company can make an argument that your side project is somehow related to their current or expected future business, they can ruin your day in court even in CA.

Yeah, I agree that they're common and that the companies that use them are probably "otherwise ethical" (although I think our ethical standards for businesses are tragically low).

So if hold a job and are painter in your spare time does the corp owns your paintings as well? This is hilariously abusive

That is what these corporations would allege, although I don't know how well these contracts hold up in court and in reality most corporations aren't going to sue or fire you if you sell your paintings or whatever. But yeah, it's still pretty shitty.

These are very common, and a lot of it has to do with avoiding the complex situation of taking work related research or knowledge and saying "oh I did it in my own time."

I'm not advocating this is right, or ethical, but saying that it would be an understandable precaution. The statement, and requirements are made up front, and there are no surprises for either party.

I don't think anyone disputes that companies are doing this as a precaution nor that it's common practice. It's "understandable" in that we've become conditioned to expect corporations to ignore ethics or morals in service of their bottom line ("What do you expect them to do? They have a 'fiduciary responsibility' to their shareholders!"). In general, I think it's absurd to claim all employees' work just to protect against niche cases, and I would like to see this practice (and similar practices) outlawed.

Also non-enforceable in California

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