That's great stuff Warren. There's a further angle which has not been covered, which was decided in the High Court about 11-15 years ago. I will have to rely on memory and on my "take-away" from when I read about it. Sorry I cannot provide a proper reference, but this message may serve as a pointer.
Basically when an employee is hired, they're hired because of what they can do. The fact that they then apply those skills to solve some problem does not create a restriction on their ability to solve that problem again for someone else. That would restrict the employee's future ability to practise their skills - it is a restriction of trade. This principle overrides any contractual arrangement with the employer. What it means is that any code you personally write - as an employee or as a contractor - is legal for you to recreate, even verbatim, in any future engagement. You may not take away a copy from your employer, but if you recreate it - even exactly, the employer has no recourse. If you recreate something which contain elements contributed by other employees during the same engagement, that is obviously a different story and normal copyright principles apply. I hope this pointer might stimulate someone more determined than me to search for the case details. They concerned a re-usable library that a coder brought to and substantially extended during a gig. Clifford Heath. On 26/06/2013, at 12:02 PM, Warren Seen <[email protected]> wrote: > I hate to contradict your family member Craig, but as far as I've been > informed, and can find online, Phil's right, we follow the same principle > here, in which independent contractors DO own the copyright to their work, > unless they complete some form of copyright assignment to the client. > > sources: > http://www.davies.com.au/content/37/iplaw/copyright > http://www.business.gov.au/BusinessTopics/Independentcontractors/Documents/Independentcontractorstheessentialhandbook.pdf > (p20) > > "Without a written contract that attributes ownership of IP to your hirer, > you will automatically own the IP. If your hirer wishes to own the IP, this > must be specifically outlined in the contract. You may wish to seek legal > advice about clauses relating to IP before signing the contract." > > This is different for employees, where the copyright DOES go to the employer > automatically. > > Again, this is all speaking from personal research, and with no legal > background - I guess at the end of the day, this just underlines the fact > that you shouldn't rely on people on the internet for legal advice, as you'll > get a multitude of opinions. :) > > On 26/06/2013, at 11:44 AM, Phil Oye <[email protected]> wrote: > >> IANAL either, but that is consistent with my understanding. >> >> In the US, this is called "Work For Hire". Normally authors retain >> copyright, UNLESS it is work for hire, then the employer retains the >> copyright. >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire >> >> This makes intuitive sense to me. Otherwise, you would need to explicitly >> license the work to the client otherwise they have no rights to it even >> though they paid for it. >> >> p. >> >> On 26/06/2013, at 11:11 AM, Craig Read <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> IANAL, but I have one in the family who specialized in IP and asked him the >>> question. >>> >>> His response was to assume they own everything as you produced the work for >>> them, unless you verbally agreed otherwise. >>> >>> >>> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 10:19 AM, Sebastian Porto <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> Hi All >>> >>> Hopefully someone in the list can clarify this for me. Let's say that you >>> do contract work for a client but there is never a signed contract, just >>> the invoices to prove that the work was done. >>> >>> Are the IP and the code two different issues? Who owns the IP for this >>> work? Who owns the code? Morality aside, what will hold in a court of law? >>> >>> Thanks >>> Sebastian >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Craig Read >>> >>> @Catharz >>> https://github.com/Catharz >>> http://stackoverflow.com/users/158893/catharz >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
