Right, that's the point of these clauses, to make sure that's not the case, or that you're not making a competing product, before something is released publicly.
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EA (And Other Studios) Apparently Have Policies That Require Developers To Gather Permission Before Producing Any Creative Works Outside Of Work
- Thread starter Deleted member 18944
- Start date
Yes, this is standard stuff.
A union wouldn't change anything, a union would have the same outcome; ask the employer about selling stuff that might break non-compete or may have been created on company time/resources.
Because if the default state of the contract is "we own your shit, fuck you", then they can legally make the case that if you're writing a novel at home and even THOUGHT ABOUT IT while on the job site, then you're "using company time" to create your work and they therefore own it.
It shouldn't be set up that way. This idea that the default state of an employee is "obviously out to screw poor, defenseless corporation" is the exact opposite of reality, where the default state of every corporation is to fuck every employee until they run out of spirit and quit or get fired.
a union could reject this clause during contract negotiations if the membership wanted it to
This.
This is what you get working at a major corporation. Fortunately, you can get approval in a lot of cases.
OK, well then I'm impressed your workplace doesn't take issues with you releasing competing products while employed there.
This is fairly standard language that is present in a lot of developer related jobs, but recently I have not seen it as much in the job market for new positions. It is more common at large corporate entities overall. Start ups rarely have this kind of language in their contracts. I'm grateful that I do not work in a position that has such language.
The more common clause I have seen is basically 'if you use company resources to make anything, it belongs to us' which really just means whatever you're going to work on outside of work don't use your work laptop or work resources to assist you with it.
The more common clause I have seen is basically 'if you use company resources to make anything, it belongs to us' which really just means whatever you're going to work on outside of work don't use your work laptop or work resources to assist you with it.
And as a single individual you can ask for a "carve out" as well.
It should absolutely be set up this way, otherwise both the employee and the employer face greater legal vulnerability after the fact. Scare capitals all you want, but company time is company time. Easy concept.
and the company says no, in which case you're out of luck.
individuals tend to have less leverage than a group. that's the point of unions.
"Just because its standard, doesn't make it right" is not a argument. if you have a problem with this, maybe show examples of this policy being abused?
This has been standard practice in companies for many, many years. Surely some examples of it being abused would come up.
This has been standard practice in companies for many, many years. Surely some examples of it being abused would come up.
It is not. It's idiotic. :D
In what timeline do you people live?
Never heard of this before but that sucks. It's not like you just work for them, it's like they own you creatively.
No way I could work with that condition, what I do outside of work creatively is my business, not the company I work for. Thankfully my job has no such contract.
No way I could work with that condition, what I do outside of work creatively is my business, not the company I work for. Thankfully my job has no such contract.
So I guess the human brain should just turn off while at work, huh? Everyone should just be a mindless drone, mining profit for Great Benevolent Corporation.
If it has any account of his time at his current publisher? Then it's potentially damaging to his employer; not surprising why they'd say no.
Even if it didn't include any account from his current publisher? It could potentially damage the employer's relations with other publishers/platform holders if the employee had bad things to say about them. Like it or not, you represent your employer when you publish your personal views; especially if those personal views pertain to potential partners within the industry you're working in.
Imagine the scandal if someone like, say, Yuji Naka (who now works for Square-Enix) wrote and published a book that took a steaming dump on both Nintendo and SEGA behind S-E's back; you can bet your arse that S-E would fire him immediately and that he'd be blacklisted by every major Japanese publisher, never to have another chance at getting a job again. S-E would then have to scramble to make apologise and make costly amends with Nintendo.
This is public relations 101 stuff. Never shit on your own doorstep and don't burn bridges.
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i think the overwhelming majority of examples will not be visible because they will consist of employees giving up on personal projects because they can't spend the time or energy to take a risk that their boss will fuck them over
also i posted one earlier in the thread
Well you shouldn't be impressed. This isn't some stupid "my job whips ass" flex. This is straight up brought up to counter the notion that this is "just the way things are" in all industries and that people should be just be content with an overly-prohibitive working condition.
This is a straw man, unless you have an example of this actually happening.
That's the idea, yes, and intentionally trying to set it up as evil doesn't change the fact that, yes, jobs pay money for specific, job-related reasons. Companies don't pay people so those people can do the things they weren't hired for.
Standard. Also, If I create anything using my company issued laptop, it's their property because I used tools issued by them for my personal gain.
It's almost like capitalism is a broken system that disproportionately benefits the employer at the expense of the employee.
This isn't necessarily true, actually. Court settlements could easily include clauses where you're not allowed to talk about what happened. At that point, we're flying blind. It's like how people who make a fangame and just release don't necessarily get hit with a C&D, if you're familiar with that discussion. Which isn't me implying that the same moral argument is at play, because it isn't-- but we don't know how unreasonable companies are or aren't being.
That's a bit of a strawman hypothetical. As noted many times in this thread, that doesn't happen in practice and the contracts aren't set up such that "we own you" is accurate.
Not to mention that is they did sue you, they have to prove you worked on it during company time/company resources, which is not as easy as you might think. Sure, company IT can check your internet access/commit logs, but thoughts aren't legal evidence.
You have no evidence to suggest this. This is completely baseless speculation. People in this thread had said that "The company has been incredibly supportive" when is comes to thing like this.
Also the example you provided is 100% connected to the games industry, as argued earlier by Matt.
Can we at least agree that this is an US specific problem?
All of the people that live in the EU have stated to have never heard of something so extreme.
Because there seems to be a disconnection in understanding here.
All of the people that live in the EU have stated to have never heard of something so extreme.
Because there seems to be a disconnection in understanding here.
It's almost like this system protects everyone involved and the only way to interpret it otherwise is to fundamentally misrepresent the issues at hand.
This is literal speculation and hypothetical like your example about all those poor devs who work on creative projects during the weekends.
I'm surprised at the amount of people just learning about this. Intellectual property rules are insanely pro-corporation. Even your thoughts and likeness (via Twitter/social media) are defined to be images of the company you work for, and are sought to be controlled by that company. Say something silly or do something that raises eyebrows at any point during your employment, and you can find yourself fired for it, even if it has nothing to do with your professional work. That's why sometimes you'll see people with disclaimers that state "All opinions are their own."
All of it is solely for the ability to make more money. Just look Walk Disney's issues with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit or the fact that Conan can no longer use all his classic Late Night characters and bits like In The Year 2000, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, or The Masturbating Bear.
Moral of the story: Never associate yourself with your place of employment on social media, and if you want to be creative, keep your work secret.
All of it is solely for the ability to make more money. Just look Walk Disney's issues with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit or the fact that Conan can no longer use all his classic Late Night characters and bits like In The Year 2000, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, or The Masturbating Bear.
Moral of the story: Never associate yourself with your place of employment on social media, and if you want to be creative, keep your work secret.
Those examples really have nothing to do with this thread. They were created for an employer on company time using company resources.
Those are exceptionally bad examples, as they were made with company resources on company time, which is not what is being argued here.
EDIT: Beaten
My job gives me a sales vehicle that I use for normal work business.
I can't use that vehicle to make money on my personal time. Such as Uber or Lyft. I thought this was standard practice
I can't use that vehicle to make money on my personal time. Such as Uber or Lyft. I thought this was standard practice
well i prefaced it with "i think" which seems to me like a pretty good indicator i was speculating, but it seems likely to me because if my employment contract says "if you do X we'll drag you to court, take your shit, and probably fire you" then i will most likely not do X
even if it turns out my boss is a big old snuggly teddy bear and graciously allows me to pursue my own interests off the clock i might not know about that or think it's worth the risk
I guess it'll take you a moment longer to understand that this is non-compete in a field they don't actually work in or actually compete in.
Most people already know this, you don't by self evidence.
Clauses as restrictive as these go beyond simple non-compete.
Some don't allow you to work in similar fields and produce works afterwards because of insider knowledge, I think google does it but correct me on that.
No, not the same.
This would be like you using your own money and time to create something you don't do at work and completely unrelated and trying to "release" it and work having a problem.
Reading this thread as a programmer is very weird. Yes. This is standard in our industry.
Does it suck? Yup. But I want to write game engines Damn it. I don't have a choice. And every technical job like programming is like this. Welcome to my world y'all lol.
Does it suck? Yup. But I want to write game engines Damn it. I don't have a choice. And every technical job like programming is like this. Welcome to my world y'all lol.
Yeaahh, about that... Many EU countries actually have this kind of stuff in legislation, for example Finland has had a separate law about patent-eligible inventions made by employees since 1967. This is very standard clause and it's something that I've seen in nearly every contract I've ever had a look on.
that's not what the contracts would say? unless you have any evidence that indicates otherwise
If you have questions, just ask the legal department. They are really not interested in giving you a problem for the pure joy of it, as evidenced by the fact that no one has actually been able to produce an example of this being an undue problem.
Apple has a similar policy when I worked retail for 6 years. You couldn't even make apps, and if you did Apple owned them. Crazy
That is a separate IP issue unrelated to the thread at hand; using EA's logo/brand for unapproved purposes as an employee would indeed get you fired/sued very quickly, as EA explicitly owns it.
I worked at Apple and the reason for that particular restriction IIRC is not because of IP, but because of antitrust rules.
i also like the implication in this thread that the only other creative work video game developers are likely to do in their spare time is develop more video games
unless you think devs are too afraid to start a podcast or something because EA will steal ownership of it
unless you think devs are too afraid to start a podcast or something because EA will steal ownership of it