Remember the whole Scrolls debacle? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrolls_%28video_game%29#Bethes... Apparently that was Bethesda Softworks, not Zenimax... but I wonder who was really behind it.
It's not really impossible to conceive that they might actually have a valid claim.
Unless recreating non-patented work from memory is actually forbidden? That would be horrible.
Here lies the black magic of the Non-Compete Agreement.
Nevertheless, this doesn't look like a Non-Compete Agreement violation, or we would probably have seen those words in the article. My guess is, Carmack haven't signed one (75% probability).
It's essentially writing new code looking at your old source code, and hence directly derivative of work that Zenimax has a reasonable claim to.
It is also possible to work back from first principles. Heck, many Free Software was written like that: by rewriting the proprietary parts, possibly one by one.
1 - If your employment contract says that the company owns 100% of your work unless otherwise approved, you have limited legal standing. This means all side projects must be approved, or the company owns it.
2 - Some employment contracts are more specific that they only own what happens during working hours. This can be tough if you work on a project during working hours, and they reject it. You definitely can't take the code with you, but you can keep what's in your head.
3 - If you pitch a side project done on your own time to a company who only owns what's produced during your working hours, then you have a right to take it with you if you offer it to them and they don't want it.
I actually don't consider #1 so awful. As a prospective employee you should negotiate it with a price. Similar to if someone wants a very long non-compete. It's only immorale if they spring it on you after you start. If they hand it to you during salary negotiations, then you can put a price on it, or go elsewhere. ("I'm happy to accept a 1 year non-compete, if you pay me 5% more, and give me 6 months severance if I'm fired for any reason, including with cause.")
It would be similar to saying a book writer who's main job is a typist would have to get his book approved (and potentially denied), or an artist would lose rights to his works he makes during his free time. It's out of this world wrong.
Note that - depending on the details - state law my trump one of those "We own your brain 100% of the time, 24x7" sort of agreements, even if you did sign it. There are states where the law simply does not permit an employer to enforce such an overly broad claim to an individual's intellectual output.
Now if the work in question was legitimately done on "work time", in the course of a work related initiative, then it seems clear that the IP does belong to the employer in most cases.
The question to me (coming at this as a non lawyer) is where the line is between "the IP" per-se and general knowledge and know-how that you absorb by osmosis over time, and which you clearly should not be restricted from accessing. IOW, if Programmer A learns to use a "for loop" during his first programming job, does that mean he can never use a "for loop" again? Obviously not...
3 - If you pitch a side project done on your own time to a company who only owns what's produced during your working hours, then you have a right to take it with you if you offer it to them and they don't want it.
That certainly seems like the way things should be. :-)
Paul Graham himself warned about this: he basically said that if you're thinking about launching a startup and are currently employed, you shouldn't write a single line of code, if only to be safe.
This state of affair is obviously twisted and wrong, but in this world, corporations have more say than the people. Of course they will push in that direction.
Imagine you're a chef. You design and cook menu items at your day job, then you go home and make pasta alfredo in your own way. You go to a new restaurant and you bring your pasta alfredo influence to it. Should restaurant 1 have any rights to the pasta alfredo you designed at home that was not even in use at their restaurant? Should restaurant 1 be able to charge you for making your pasta alfredo at home?
Obviously the big issue here is stealing code snippets or working on other products on the clock of another employer. But the blanket "anything you make while employed here at any capacity is ours" is just ridiculous and needs to go away.
Maybe it can go away if everyone just ignored it? :P
Just to play devils advocate here, sometimes it is the businessman with the idea and the programmers who implement the idea and create the tech. Should the Idea man get the rights or the "workers" digging the trench.
A lot of large companies have policies that anything you make in your off time is owned by them. I can see why they do it my company has probably spent thousands on training and employee development and they want the return.
It may not be a popular thing for some people (including myself) but I see why they do it.
And that's just wrong, plain and simple. There's no excuse this is allowed.
> I can see why they do it my company has probably spent thousands on training and employee development and they want the return.
Training someone is not a valid claim to all uses of those skills; off-time is off-time. Just because someone applies a skill they learned at work in their off-time in no way justifies the company owing that work.
What's to stop me from directly copying what I am doing at work and trying to compete with them? It wouldnt be fair if every employee you hired could just quit then rip you off once they figured out everything.
Fortunately my company has a process where you can legally clear your side projects as long as it isnt in conflict or competes with the company.
> What's to stop me from directly copying what I am doing at work and trying to compete with them? It wouldnt be fair if every employee you hired could just quit then rip you off once they figured out everything.
That's theft, copying is not the same thing as rewriting in your own time.