The key phrase in the US code governing this is "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment", and the determining case at the federal level is CCNV v. Reid. From http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cybrscen.htm:
"The Court emphasized that state laws of agency govern whether one is an employee... In determining whether a work is within the scope of employment, the courts will focus on whether the employee was hired to do the kind of work in question or how closely related it is to the employee’s primary job responsibilities; whether the employee created the work substantially on the company’s time and using its facilities; and whether the motivation to create the work was at least in part, to serve the employer, including serving fellow employees’ or the employer’s customers’ needs." Note the sentence "whether the employee was hired to do the kind of work in question or how closely related it is to the employee’s primary job responsibilities," and note also that it is state laws of agency which determine the "employee" and "scope of employment" status. As Dain said, it's something that varies state to state and is complex enough that just saying "but I did it at home" isn't enough. Do you ever do work at home for the employer? Were you hired by the employer to do the same type of work? My message was just meant as a word of caution. Whenever I'm hired as an employee, I try to advise them of the work I occasionally do on Open Source software, and if possible get a written agreement that they will eschew any copyright claim for work I do on my own time & equipment. Needless to say, they are almost never willing to do that, and what I usually end up with is a verbal agreement to that on principle, and then I'm careful not to work on any open source stuff that's too similar to what I do at work. Dave --- Rhett Aultman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I honestly don't think that's the > case, which leads me to suspect that your employer > cannot just unilaterally annex work you do in your > spare time unless they can cite a conflict of > interests or some sort of other direct threat to > their interests (such as stealing a trade secret). > > Really...does anyone know a little of the case law > here? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Neuer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Monday, December 23, 2002 2:05 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [JBoss-dev] Good-bye II > > > > --- Dain Sundstrom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Andy, > > > > Do you own your own work anymore? > > > > This is actually a key issue that everyone working > on > this type of projejct should really be aware of. If > you are a permanent employee of a company in the > USofA > which produces copyrightable material (such as > software) --unless you have a contract to the > contrary > -- that company owns the copyright to the work you > do. > Not just the work you do on company time & > equipment, > but often even the work you do from home on your > spare > time. > > IANAL, and my understanding is that the degree to > which the latter is the case MAY depend on how > similar > the work you've done on your own time & equipment is > to the work you get paid to do, but since that's up > to > a judge's discretion -- and case law, I guess -- it > would be insane for someone running an Open Source > project to knowingly allow questionable code into > their base as, LGPL, GPL or Bob's License, license > issues don't help you if some other entity can claim > to own the copyright. This is why the FSF asks > people > to formally assign the copyright to free software > under the GNU project to them. > > If Andy really does work for a company, as a regular > employee, who produces software similar to JBoss, > removing his code is the right thing to do even if > it's technically superior to every other bit of code > in the codebase and he's the sweetest human being > that > ever lived, to protect the right of all of the rest > of > us to use this awesome software. > > Dave Neuer > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up > now. > http://mailplus.yahoo.com > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek > Welcome to geek heaven. > http://thinkgeek.com/sf > _______________________________________________ > Jboss-development mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jboss-development > > > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Jboss-development mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jboss-development
