Now I am not completely familiar with contracts such as these, but I
am pretty sure the narrowly written contracts were the result of
legal advice companies got when they had to battle former employees
who took or attempted to patent items that were developed for
companies on company time and with company money for private enterprise.
My dad worked for the FORMER AT&T which developed a lot of items that
are essential for todays technology. The basic design of the phone
was an open patent. They had to share their technology with
companies such as GT&T and IT&T as part of providing phone
service. That allowed GT&T and IT&T to compete against the monopoly
(legal one)
Now on a different side, I expect to battle a former employee the
moment we cancel the web contract with them. They claim (this was
made before they left) that they had copyrighted the web page and
it's contents for themselves. This was a web page developed
primarily on church time, with church funds and with the help of the
church. (I am pretty sure much of the costs they incurred were
declared as church donations.) Now I would never want to go to
court, but there is no way the person can claim sole ownership of our
website.
I am not saying the contracts many employees sign are ethical (They
are legal by the way) but many of them are this way because too many
folks played fast and loose with their own ethics.
Stewart
At 08:19 PM 5/31/2007, you wrote:
I am reluctant to enter into this discussion, since I am conflicted
about the issues.
Were I 40 years younger, I would completely agree with Tom Piwowar
that we all need to be honest as well as obeying the law -- all the
stuff taught in Civics course in High School (never mind that my
high school adviser told me that the civics course was for those not
going to college).
But over the years I have seen many changes. Today, employers don't
care at all about expertise nor loyalty from their employers nor do
they care much about the desire of the customer unless it affects
the bottom line of their company. Achieving a monopoly is paramount to them.
As a person whose interests spans both engineering and artistic
endeavors, I see copyright and patent law from more than one
perspective. On the one hand corporations argue that they are
protecting the innovation of the musician, the artist, the producers
of radio & video materials, and the writer from exploitation by
others. On the other hand, they prohibit many of these from
actually engaging in copyright or patent protection.
(As an example: many large engineering firms require all employees
to assign in advance all copyright or patent rights to their
employer from anywhere to ten years to life -- even if they quit the
company and find another job -- regardless of whether or not these
relate to the work of the employee. Thus, an engineer in said
company would loose all profit for a literary novel he/she might
write & publish after quitting the job that has no technical
information whatsoever in it.)
(A second example: simply read
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~carroll/barroll/ My web page is a result
of much effort regarding a composer of music. After his death,
music publishers copyrighted his music without regard to his wishes
or those of his family. Their purpose was to prevent other
publishers from making a profit by republishing Barroll's
music. Today, the composer is largely unknown and his estate
receives no royalties because of these copyrights.)
In face of this one-sided perversion of copyright and patent law,
about which the individual can't do much, what is to be done? I no
longer believe that all law regarding copyright and patents should
be obeyed by the individual for his own personal use where no harm
is accrued to the patent or copyright holder. If there is a real
harm, then of course I will honor the law and denounce those who break it.
But first think: the Supreme Court says that an individual has a
right to make an archival copy of anything in his possession: the
current law makes it illegal to exercise that right by using someone
else's software to do so. Is this latter law what we should obey?
Rev. Stewart A. Marshall
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Prince of Peace www.princeofpeaceozark.org
Ozark, AL SL 82
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