The parent company attempted to make claims on works I'd done on my own time. I balked. I declined to sign their employment contract, which stipulated any ideas I'd come up with, devices I made, or code I wrote, on my time or theirs, belonged to them.
You called their bluff. Good for you. If it wasn't a bluff, you'd have heard back.
Much of this nonesense is thanks to lawyers who're trying to tilt agreements to be maximally advantageous to the corporation. It's easy and inexpensive to thrust a one-sided agreement in front of people. Most people will just sign. If you push back, it's no longer an inexpensive process for them to pursue the issue.
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I had the fortune of starting working for a very big IT company, doing hardware support. At the same time, I was still spending personal time developing perl and HTML for friends / my wallet.
Luckily for me, this was roughly two or three days after tillys most famous node. When the day came to sign my contract, I did something I would have never done otherwise - I read the smallprint. I objected to one particular section related to this thread, Intelectual Property. After a few casual chats with their lawyers, they agreed that the clause was not too important. However, 3 months down the line, the contract is still lying on my desk, unsigned.
Am I getting payed? Yes.
Has anyone ever mentioned it since? Nope.
SMiTZ | [reply] |