[SWLUG] Kindle Warning?

[Steve Hill]

On Mon, 22 Nov 2010, Neil Jones wrote:

> I have 
> been here before when a corporate take-over found me working for a new 
> company whose contracts claimed the copyright to anything and everything we 
> did , work related or not.
  [snip]
> Because no-one  else was vigilant about their liberty I was stuck with it 
> until I left.

A corporate takeover would have protected you through TUPE legislation and 
there is therefore no requirement for you to sign such a contract (no 
matter what everyone else decides to do).

I too have been affected by a similar situation and I just flatly refused 
to sign until they had fixed the contract.  (In my case, the contract 
claimed an unrestricted and irrevocable licence to anything I owned the 
copyright to which was produced prior coming into their employment.  This 
is something I would not sign anyway, out of principle; but more 
importantly, I am not necessarilly in the position to grant such a licence 
- much of my work would be considered a "derived work" of third party 
GPL'd code, which would mean that whilst I own the copyright, I am 
restricted on what licence I can grant.).

Also, I believe the "work related or not" bit has already been tested in 
court and non-work-related stuff has been thrown out.

-- 

  - Steve
    xmpp:steve at nexusuk.org   sip:steve at nexusuk.org   http://www.nexusuk.org/

      Servatis a periculum, servatis a maleficum - Whisper, Evanescence