On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 11:42 PM, John Culp <[email protected]> wrote:
> Timothy, > > Can you even assign copyright for something you are doing _related_ to > your probable research work at Binghamton? Even if you are working on this > 100% in what you consider as your spare time, your employer may have claim > to the work. > I specifically grilled them about this and had the director of Technology Transfer explain to me the boundaries carefully. If I'm not using any of BU's resources, they don't lay any claim to it. And actually, it's not really BU; it's the state of New York, since this is a state institution. Basically, if I'm doing this from home, using my own equipment, it's the same as if I did outside consulting under the same terms. I DO need to disclose potential conflicts of interest, and I have to keep some kind of paper trail that shows that my contributions were published not using BU resources. That's one of the reasons I want to post code to the list using my gmail account. > > I only ask this as I remember the contracts I signed for my work here. > > You may have it in writing with your employer that you personally own the > copyright and patentable ideas in all the future works that you create > related to Open Graphics, and therefore can license it as you see fit, but > perhaps you don't. > There is also the issue of pre-existing IP we developed before I started at BU and the fact that many people consider this to be public property. I may be its legal owner, but morally, I'm just its guardian. I can't pocket the money myself. My colleagues at BU understand this. > > Universities can be pretty funny when it comes to IP of any sort. IP > created that is in any way related to any research that you are being paid > to do would probably be in a dark grey area. I am assuming that you are a > professional, not an hourly employee, and you may not actually have any > official spare time when it comes to related work. > One of the things I can do is rent office space there for $200/month, which explicitly removes any conflicts of interest, state claims on IP, and allows me access to BU resources, faculty, and staff. The instant that this project has revenue potential, I'm going to enter into this arrangement. Meanwhile, I really can't justify that expense. I'm just going to keep clear separation. Worst case, if I screw something up badly enough, NYS will take 60% of our revenue. > > Why don't you spend ~$1k and run your employment contracts by a lawyer > specializing in such things (work for hire). I have been told that New > York law is in general pretty funny compared to the other states; I don't > know how that might effect you. > Do you know how much I make? Let's just say that I took a big pay cut when coming to BU, so this isn't an expense I can make right now. My wife's opinion (who is a lawyer, BTW, licensed in Florida and Ohio, but not specializing in IP law) is that I should bring this whole thing into BU and let NYS own it (making it necessary for me to reject many outside contributions) because it's better for my tenure application and doesn't interfere with my ACADEMIC goals. This doesn't prevent me from releasing it under GPL, but it does mean that NYS would take 60% of any revenue. This would also make my life a lot easier for me, except for all the flak I'd get from letting "the evil government" take a big chunk of money that belongs to the project. SHOULD I let NYS own this? > > It may be that you need to run any license though whatever legal office > exists at your university. For example: Wasn't the copyright of the X > source originally held by MIT, but then licensed very permissively through > the 'MIT X License'? > I could probably license this under BSD or MIT, and no one in NYS would raise an eyebrow. It it would prevent _us_ from getting any revenue; meanwhile, Apple could plop it into the iPhone 12 and make billions. I don't like that. I'm doing this for research purposes so that academics can have an easier time developing new GPU-related techologies, not so that some money-grubbing corporation can just lift our IP. This is why I want to make use of copyright and even patent protection. If a commercial entity wants to use that, that's great; we'll take a cut and use that to further our FOSS and academic goals. Anyhow, basically, this whole mess comes about because I think it's important that we control the revenue stream and make sure it's invested properly and primarily in FOSS-related projects. Maybe I'm wrong to think that. > > IANAL (obviously) > > > -John > > -- > John R. Culp > [email protected] > > ______________________________**_________________ > Open-graphics mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.duskglow.com/**mailman/listinfo/open-graphics<http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics> > List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com) > -- Timothy Normand Miller, PhD Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Binghamton University http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/<http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti> Open Graphics Project
_______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
