[RESOLVED] I know it's been asked before...

davidjam

I am currently working on a collection of scripts that drive a website used for job orders and maintenance. I am working on it mostly from my place of employment where I get an hourly wage. The site is for the company I work for. However, in the future I would like to take those scripts, improve them, add to them, and build a completely different user-interface for my own site.

Please note: I do spend about 10-15% of the development time working on my home computer.

Realistically, does anyone see a problem with this?

leatherback

Depends on your contract & copyright clauses.
In my contract I had a clause put that any code for any program I develop becomes property of the institute and of me. So I can use it as long as I do not create the same service as the institute is providing.

vaaaska

It's one thing if you are a freelancer...it's something completely different if you are an actual employee. You'll need permission in some form - it's not implied.

davidjam

I have the kind of boss that doesn't care as long as you don't bring it up. I mean it is highly unlikely that they would ever challenge me in the future. However, if I start talking legality and permission then he will likely get paranoid, call his attorney, who then makes him more paranoid, etc, etc.

Maybe I'm the one who is paranoid. And I agree kinda with what leatherback said, tho it is a different scenario (employment, no contracts). I figure ETHICS would dictate: don't use or sell something that is going to be in direct competition to the one who paid for it. Otherwise why not, especially when we are dealing with something as nebulous and changeable as a bunch of php scripts!

And another thing: where do you draw the line on GENERIC functions and classes and ones that were SPECIFICALLY developed for a particular client. I mean I expect to RE-USE what I have built so-far! (I hope I can!)

vaaaska

If they won't know or don't care, then what's the issue here? (I do agree that intellectual property rights are a little out of wack these days).

I had a friend who wrote a small application that was used for doing a very specific marketing analysis/report. And the company one day says 'this is great, we are going to sell this around the world.' He felt good...and then...

They pushed a contract in front of him that gave away the rights. Eh? HE WAS A FREELANCER! 'I think I'll contact my attorney', he said. 'Oh really...you mean I have an implied copyright because I was not an employee?'

In the end, they had to buy a license to market the thing. Every year now he gets a commission check plus a licensing fee from them.

I know this isn't exactly your case...but things change. Refer to the first sentence...rinse...repeat...

piersk

Ok, it's one thing to take a product with you, its another thing to take the technology.

The way I see it is, you'd be able to use similar scripts to do similar things so why no take them with you. As long as you don't take the system as a whole then I don't think it would be a problem.

I think that makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't

justsomeone

Get it in writing that you can copy your emplyer's source and do what you like with it. Otherwise don't touch it.

You could always code similar functionality with demonstrably different code. You're not allowed steal code, but you can't unlearn skills and experience.

If you're in a US context, you might want to investigate the patent side of this too. Even if your new code works differently to your employer's, if they both deliver the same functionality and your emploer owns the patent, you could be in trouble too.

davidjam

vaaaska wrote:
If they won't know or don't care, then what's the issue here?

I told you I was a little paranoid. But they could see my web-site in the future and recognize the similarity and then press the issue...

I guess the main thing is that I implement my site in a way that doesn't look like a rip-off and that it not be competing both in terms of market-area and service(s) offered.

piersk wrote:
The way I see it is, you'd be able to use similar scripts to do similar things so why no take them with you. As long as you don't take the system as a whole then I don't think it would be a problem.

All the scripts work together in a systematic way but these could be greatly improved (re-written, some dropped, new ones added), so in the end is it the same system??? Or could they argue "it wasn't yours to re-write in the first place"?

vaaaska

Davidjam wrote:
I guess the main thing is that I implement my site in a way that doesn't look like a rip-off and that it not be competing both in terms of market-area and service(s) offered.

David...the way I read this is that you are going to do something 'similar' to theirs. "Market-area" for a web-application is the entire globe basically.

My brother, the attorney, would be yelling in my ear right now if I was in your shoes.

However, it's possible, because you aren't being more specific, that you are planning to simply use the architecture to create a new system that does something totally different...and different industry...etc. To this I say 'go for it'.

But, you're riding upon the naivete and generosity of your current employer, and you simply can't expect that it will go a'ok off into the future.

Just be careful. Don't be paranoid...get it right.

davidjam

OK specific: The company I work for manufactures paper business forms (which BTW are still in hot demand). Therefore, the market-area cannot possibly be global but must be in a certain proximity to the plant (in terms of shipping times and costs). Also there is still a very strong bias towards only trusting local sources, although my present employer has quite a client-base all across a fair part of the USA.

What I am specifically considering is offering print brokerage in addition to other services (including print design and web development). I figure it would be "bread and butter" work and now I know alot about the specs of it, I feel like I can do it.

So, yes, it would be the same industry and I would only do it under these conditions: a. I lived far enough away from their market area or b. live within the market area and use them exclusively for the printing. In either case I don't see any conflict.

I agree, I should get it right. I think I will know more as the heart of the site becomes functional (the actual ordering of the forms). I just finished the MySQL tables, upwards of 100 columns spanning three related tables...

Elizabeth

IANAL of course, but I believe unless you specify in your contract (as leatherback said) then it's the property of the company. Did you sign a non-compete clause when you were hired? If not, then it might be questionable...

As an aside, my dad got a patent when he was an employee for a company, thus the patent has his name on it but the company owns it. Even though he developed it, he couldn't ever do anything with it. Now that's not to say he couldn't take the knowledge he learned while developing the patent (or in your case the code) and basically recreate his own wheel in a somewhat different way.

davidjam

Elizabeth wrote:
...and basically recreate his own wheel in a somewhat different way.

I guess that is what I will probably do anyways. I want to re-write it using proper OOP coding practice in PHP5, and I'm sure there will be many improvements - like I said, drop stuff, add stuff.

I think in the end it will not be obvious that my site is based on these scripts. I think that should take care of the "unique" factor in judging the copyright issue. Thanks to all for your input (also it gave me a chance to think about it). 🙂