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Ask HN: Can a company claim copyright/IPR on my non-software creations?

5 points by butterNaN ↗ HN
To my utter shame, I must admit that when I accepted the job offer at my current place of employment, I merely skimmed over the 'Intellectual Property Rights' and 'Copyrights' section of contract. Last year I learned to produce music. I sometimes publish some of it online, free and open source. I happened to re-read my contract for an unrelated reason when these clauses caught my eye, and they looked scary. I compared this contract with some other offer letters I had received in the past, and it seems that this is a common practice.

Does this mean the company can technically claim IP right/Copyright on anything I create, even if it's not a software that competes with them?

5 comments

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uberman
Without the details, it is impossible to say.
dv_dt
This depends on the state you are in, and other circumstances, such as are you using company equipment/time to create or publish it. There are many cases that claims are made beyond what is enforceable. You really have to consult with a lawyer from your state to know.
MrWiffles
I think CA has some laws to protect you in some cases, as may other states, but the sad part is that contracts, laws - all meaningless unless you have an attorney to take bad actors to court. Otherwise the laws that could protect you will be ignored. Laws without enforcement are pointless. Sadly, the only way for the little guy to get Justice is to pay an attorney for that enforcement. So just be aware (and save money). That said, if it’s entirely unrelated to your profession, I don’t see any court allowing a suit to proceed. That would likely be unenforceable and a waste of the courts time, and their general counsel should know that. It wouldn’t make sense for them to pursue you for music if it isn’t related to your field or company’s business.
d--b
There are too few details here and your question is too vague.

But I would say that the question is not “can they legally?”, but rather “will they?”. If they claim ownership of your music, and threaten to sue you for it, you’ll probably just give it away, cause paying a lawyer to defend your right and enter a lengthy court battle is not going to be worth it.

Now your employer has nothing to do with music, and sueing an employee over bogus cooyright claims doesn’t look too good on glassdoor. So there’s zero interest for your company to claim ownership of your open source music…

Personally if I were you, I wouldn’t be too worried.

BizarroLand
Even if you're a corporate musician, you job wouldn't own the work you created on your own time. You are granted an immediate copyright as soon as you put pen to paper or record your compositions in some tangible manner.

I am not a lawyer but any sane course would have a field day with that. It wouldn't be hard to say that we listen to Mozart's music and not Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo's music even though the Archbishop was at one point Mozart's employer.