Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: [gentoo-dev-announce] Soliciting Feedback: Gentoo Copyright Assignments / Licensing

[Roy Bamford]

On 2012.12.21 23:57, Greg KH wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 12:01:00AM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 11:08 PM, Greg KH <gregkh@g.o>
> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 02:32:25AM +0000, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> > >> 1. Are you party to any *copyright assignment* (eg FSF copyright
> assignment)?
> > >
> > > You need to rephrase this to be (in order for it to make any
> sense):
> > >   Are you party to any *copyright assignment* that is not part of
> your
> > >   employment agreement?
> > >
> > > Otherwise, everyone in the US, and most other countries, would
> almost
> > > always have to just say "yes" to this, as their employer owns the
> > > copyright for their work no matter what it is done on (open
> source
> or
> > > not.)
> >
> > Work done for hire is certainly owned by the employer, unless an
> > agreement to the contrary is explicitly documented, but employment
> > agreements that purport to assign copyright for works unrelated to
> > employment to the employer are rare.  Maybe they're not as rare in
> the
> > software industry, but most people aren't employed in the software
> > industry (even if most Gentoo developers might be - though perhaps
> not
> > as a big a majority as you might expect).
> >
> > Certainly I haven't signed any kind of document that assigns
> ownership
> > of works created on my own time to my employer, and the legality of
> > any contract I did sign to that effect would be dubious.
>
> That's not true in the US, in fact, it's the exact opposite.  Your
> employer has ownership of all of your work, even done on your own
> time,
> unless you explicitly have permission otherwise, if it is done in an
> industry that is related to your employer.  Read the traditional US
> employment agreement for details about this.
>
> Yes, some states allow for exceptions to this rule, but those are the
> exceptions (California has some unique changes here).
>
> You might have signed these types of agreements when you were hired
> by
> a
> company, and didn't realize it, it's usually quite well hidden in the
> agreement.
>
> Now this is all for the US, Europe has other types of laws, but they
> still assign ownership/copyright of what you do while being paid by
> those companies, to the company, and not to you.  Again, there are
> exceptions, but traditionally that is how they work.
>
> > > Remember, in the US, individuals who actually own the copyright
> on
> the
> > > work they do is quite rare once they get out of college, and even
> then,
> > > while in college, the school does have the right to assert
> copyright
> > > ownership of the work, depending on what it was done on/for (who
> > > provided the equipment, tasks, etc.)
> >

[snip]

This is typical for the UK too. My present employer regards my role in 
the Gentoo Foundation as 'employment'.  I had to show that there was no 
conflict of interests before I took up my paid job. 

General UK employment contracts go much further than copyright and
normally extend to any and all inventions created by the employee, 
including inventions made in their own time with their own resources.

>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h
>
>

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
elections
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
trustees