The 10% of Facebook/Google/Bytedance engineers who work on ads would be stupidly rich. The remaining 90% of engineers who work on cost centers would get paid minimum wage. If you want these residuals to be remotely equal, the metrics that determine them would be so convoluted that you might as well just pay people in stock options or RSUs.
Also what is a code contribution. If I write the "if" statement or the functional unit?
If anything, musicians need to follow WGA and SAG-AFTRA and DGA’s lead and get proper streaming royalty schedules, anti-AI-training clauses, etc. into their standard contract structures.
Just imagining how awful this would turn out if applied to the world of software makes my skin crawl.
A few musicians become big stars and can make a lot of money for themselves and for musicians who work with/for them. It falls off rapidly from there.
It would probably actually be worse for coders than it is for musicians, because the big money making projects in coding usually involve a lot more people and a lot more up front investment. A few people who led the project or wrote the truly innovative parts would get most of the royalties. The people who do the more routine parts (which is most of almost all projects) that any decent programmer could have done will get only a small amount.
For anyone curious what it is like for a musician, here's an interesting video from a well-known YouTube guitarist who is managing to make a living as a guitarist, going over a variety of ways that a guitarist might make money [1]. He looks at local gigs, touring with a mid level act, touring with a top level act, busking, cruise ships, studio work, teaching private lessons, university instructor, endorsement deals, and content creator.
That's ignoring masters and remixes, but I think my point still stands
I don't know the full extent of how true that is, but I think that's what they were saying (:
But for a private company, where are the options are essentially a lottery ticket, I think a decent number of folks would choose residuals.
Also, they could just rewrite the sections of code that are expensive and nuke their costs and your residuals at any point. Unlike a brand or whatever, it’s trivial to redo as it’s not user facing.
No deal.
That aside, you're describing already available comp models with equity participation.
However, I've executed deals where developers contribute assets and get royalties/earnout. You can always try to negotiate.
Also I've seen some that want moral rights, which I don't think one should be required to give up, ever.
Reform is needed here. I have no qualm about signing over IP developed specifically for the company, on the company's dime. But some IP agreements get absurd about it.
What’s a good example of an employer who wants that from someone because that person is an employee?
Otherwise, this is hyperbole or exceptional in the least.
These types of contracts are illegal in CA, but legal in many other states.
Can you afford to fight them if they do try to claim it? Maybe if your side project has already taken off.
If written that broadly, that's just sloppy. [0] It benefits both sides to be more clear. There are also nuances to "claim" and what rights the employer may have (e.g. They get a license, but not full copyright.)
IANAL, but I have recently read an IP waiver for a mega firm with heavy R&D and while they get their hooks in most job-related creations, they have exclusions for things orthogonal to your job.
[0] https://pro.bloomberglaw.com/common-misunderstandings-about-...
You didn’t give me a laptop. You are giving me a tool contingent upon employment. If I leave the company, you take it back. What am I supposed to be grateful for? Should a janitor thank their employer for a rolling trash can and mop?
Training? My teachers and mentors have literally no rights to anything I’ve filmed and edited. That would be ridiculous.
Lawyers and accountants are for you and your company. That is not a gift to me. I cannot just call them for my own personal use at will. They only exist for the company and company purposes. Chances are I will literally never talk to them no matter how long I work for your company.
Marketing benefits you. Why does marketing benefit me at all? They aren’t doing anything for me. They aren’t building my brand and creating an image for me. They’re doing it for you and your company. They’re driving revenue for you.
I don't know how you reconcile that with signing everyday contracts as I'm sure you do.
As for your other premises, I don't know how you can make such general claims, given endless exceptions.
I was a freelancer/production house owner for over a decade, I am very confused what you mean by this - I have no idea what you are referring to. A contract is only what is mutually agreed upon by all parties involved.
Either way, I have never signed a contract with anyone that entitled them to my work outside of the scope as dictated by the contract. What you get from me is clear in our contract or it isn’t yous. No one is entitled to anything I shoot or edit unless they explicitly paid for it. Likewise, my shooters only ever gave me what was negotiated explicitly. If that is not explicitly stated, there is no assumption they get the rights to anything I shoot or vice versa.
Go call a wedding photographer and ask for all the raws from their shoot after the fact. They’ll laugh until you hang up.
You asked how does paying for one thing entitle you to another thing.
You're referencing my comment about supplying resources in exchange for any IP you create, contractually.
I described common contractual terms and you reacted surprised.
It appears you lost the context.
I'd be very curious how you structured employment agreements for your employees (if any) -- not independent contractors.
If i go joyride behind the company’s back sure, there’s a discussion potentially because i violated the rules and jacked company property. But even then…hardly legally enforceable to claim they own the rights and not super applicable since it depends on someone effectively stealing gear to shoot.
I said that's too general.
Now, you're agreeing with me in saying using gear without permission or using company gear away from intended use is wrong.
As for your blanket statement re: copyright ownership and transfer of rights, it's simply not true to say independent contractors or employees don't sign over all of their creative products in instances. I note how you're also conflating freelance and full/part-time employees.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
If this is how we’re going to discuss this then I’ll just head out now. I have no idea what I’m talking about apparently so it’s not like you’re going to give my points or experience the time of day.
Have a good one.
See this legal take (scenario B), rejecting your over-general claims on freelancer's rights over "raw" work product. [0]
In your interest, I strongly recommend reviewing your form engagement contracts with an attorney.
[0] https://www.owe.com/resources/legalities/legalities-33-do-yo...
George Clooney isn't bringing his own cameras and lighting systems to appear in a movie, but he'll still get residuals
Why do residuals exist? I am paid to do X. I did X. My code is no more special than the shingles put on my roof. I hope the roofers don’t return for residuals again.
What I prefer is the “get the same relative raises as the CEO” that the auto union is going for.
But I’m also not a gambler. I want to know exactly what my compensation is for the hours of my life I’m giving away.
Should their work be valued the same?
Imagine someone makes a popular show. They are hired by another company in hopes of a repeat, but it flops. The company doesn't get to hold back the money because it wasn't "replayed constantly for years" or a more measurable contribution to their companies worth, unless that was written in the contract that the performer would assume the risk. But usually companies accept the risk, which is why the risk holder, such as a CEO or lenders, make more money (or lose it all if the risk fruitioned ill)
In markets like freelancing, authorship, etc; where the risk is assumed by the creator specifically, their performace can directly influence their pay. Most people would prefer a steady, risk-free paycheck though, which is why your contribution is most likely less influential to your pay, except in the case of when you go out of your way to get a new contract via promotion or job hunting.
Software is about the one place where you can select where on the curve you want to be for this. Either all self-owned and licensed (easier than elsewhere because VCs will fund you in software more likely than other businesses), as a solo shop, as an enterprise, or you can be salaried, or receive lots of equity, or a contractor.
No one in software need complain. Almost the entire full spectrum of options exists.
A $1M house with a $800k mortgage at 2.5% rates was $3161 a month
At 7.5% rates today it’s $5594
If you live in a median cost of living area $1M would get you a decent, but not amazing, house in a good school district, which is another thing a software engineer parent would probably care about.
It has a massive impact on anyone who does have a house with an ARM, and some effect if you own a house and were counting on refinancing or entering getting cash out via a new mortgage/HELOC, but if you don’t own a house, the only effect is via a potential impact on inflation specific to rental housing, not an effect additional to inflation.
I mean, it affects whether now is an ideal time from going to owning to not owning, but that's hardly a massive impact generally (massive on that decision, perhaps.)
a $1M house with a $800k mortgage would mean something like $8k monthly housing cost with property taxes and insurance included.
If you made $200k gross and contributed to a retirement account you’d net $10k a month or so. Spending 80% of that on your mortgage and property taxes is definitely not sustainable.
We are also talking about a single salary. We’re not even talking about a dual income household, which is generally the kind of family that would be buying a million dollar home in my experience.
Dual income is an entirely separate discussion from the financial impact of surging interest rates.
The average insurance rate is $1700/yr in Illinois based on a cursory google search.
I live in a state that is 2% and is going through a coverage crisis, and it would cost me ~$10-12k for coverage on a 1mill home if I adjusted the value of my home and current insurance, which I had to acquire during this crisis.
Edit: it won’t let me reply. I’m literally making the same argument you are but I found different numbers. I did not say the state set it.
I was thinking of Chicago or Cook County which is 2.19% https://smartasset.com/taxes/cook-county-illinois-property-t...
In Austin aka Travis County it is 1.95% https://smartasset.com/taxes/texas-property-tax-calculator
There are differences depending on the county and school district
This is very perplexing and frankly I just think this is veering into the unproductive.
Have a good one man.
Back to re-weighting "check users comment history" when deciding to keep commenting.
2) please don’t be that guy. This is such obnoxious online behavior.
Plus repairs and maintenance, there is always something breaking down and labor has become very expensive, materials too.
All of this makes housing unaffordable for anyone who doesn't have rich parents.
The reason we make six figures is a combination of our skills and the fact that the work that we do will be useful beyond ourselves.
Stop asking for equity - ask for a higher salary. Put that extra money into an index fund and it will go FAR more than any "equity".
What would be the systematic advantage of attaching a new system to track IP residuals be?
-If a dev get a percent of total company revenue, then you really don't want to hire many!
-If you have a basket of revenue for developers, and then they split it based on whether they worked there for the last X years, then it's the devs that don't want other people hired: The pie shrinks
- If it's by code getting executed and how much revenue that brought, then the difference in value of which team to work in becomes amazing. It's also a great idea to rewrite other people's code: This inner loop of the main revenue generating code is a goldmine. GDPR compliance? worth little
- If instead of by execution or LOC we go by system contribution, we instead get yearly rewrites or very long tenures, as people protect the systems they worked in.
Either way you slice it, the good of the company is only of tangential value, as barring a growing startup, optimizing your slice of the pie becomes far more relevant than helping the company's goal, any more than just remaining employed, and therefore capable of protecting your contribution level. It would need massive changes to the way we work to avoid massive profiteering dysfunction. The culture of software would be so different as to be borderline unrecognizable. Not unlike what would happen to plumbing if they could charge per gallon that flows through the pipe, or times a toilet is flushed.
Most technology companies wouldn’t exist without developers.
Hence they pay to hire them, as evidenced by the $200K dev in the prior post. I don't get your point.
For example they wouldn't have made any money without electricity, should the power company get paid more just because of what someone did with their electricity?