How are they using their resources when the entire basis of the thread is about it happening outside of work?
EA (And Other Studios) Apparently Have Policies That Require Developers To Gather Permission Before Producing Any Creative Works Outside Of Work
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How are they using their resources when the entire basis of the thread is about it happening outside of work?
did you try to engage your employer for permission for your personal project?
but the clause is there for the former, not the latter, even tho it encompasses both. zenimax's entire argument was that carmack's work was done partially (or wholly i don't remember) using zenimax equipment. it's *exactly* why this clause exists
also zenimax is a software developer that has released VR games, it's absolutely competing when it comes to talent, not
physical products
I would like to ask the same.
I'm working for tech companies since 15 years now and I've never seen something like this. The company I have a contact with was acquired by an American company though more than two years ago and I've heard stories that the employee was interested in what people did in their free time, with impact on performance reviews but this here is a different thing, though at the same time baffling to me.
Stuff can be industry standard (hell this is basically capitalism standard) and can also just be bad regardless. I wouldn't call people bootlickers over it. People have had lifetimes of propaganda and shit heaped on them, it's not shocking that people tend to just accept it.
The idea that something you create outside of contracted hours that does not use a company's resources should be of any legal concern to the company is absurd. Yes, people may have found these companies supportive around this policy, but it shouldn't exist at all.
If the game company owns any creative work, does that mean the company actually owns any creative food dish, and I have been violating the policy by eating the evidence?
I work in oil & gas, and there is a broad-coverage IP protection clause that more or less states that everything I made while in employment - belongs to the company.
Granted, I'm not in a creative field, and a lot of my work are not meaningful without the data of the company, but the gist is more or less the same.
Granted, I'm not in a creative field, and a lot of my work are not meaningful without the data of the company, but the gist is more or less the same.
That's not what is being discussed. Your side photography business is not something that would be competing with the shipping company. Read through the thread to get a better idea on all of this.
No the OP (and most people taking objection) is talking about having a completely different interest between your personal and professional life, hence the words "any creative work outside of studio". Dude could be a graphics designer at EA and write a book about murder mystery in his free time, and EA would claim a copyright on that book, that's what OP is talking about.. The person I quoted posted within few posts of OP so I'm assuming he's also talking about similar issue.
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In the OP it is stated that a programmer is not allowed to make music. How is making music in your free time competing with your job as a programmer?
In general, I am fine with a non-compete clause in the contract, but stuff like that in the OP is ridiculous (and I personally mostly know it from big American companies, I am sure others do it as well).
It's not that they're not allowed to make music, it's that the company has no idea what they're making on the side; by informing them that it's music, the legal department can clear it as unrelated to the work product and both sides can avoid a lengthy legal battle down the road. It's folly to assume that someone can universally and unilaterally deem their projects to be unrelated to work; hence, the requirement to inform. It does not mean that they can't make anything, and it does not mean that the company owns anything they make. It means that the company is not psychic and, from a legal perspective, "asking forgiveness" is a terrible idea.
I can understand a company needing to protect itself to a certain extent and I can appreciate that for most people who ever signed such a contract it is probably a complete non issue because they just got permission anyway. It seems pretty agreed upon one mustn't use company time nor ressources to further his own creative endeavours.
The problem is the blanket statement of "everything you produce outside of the time we pay you to work for us" belongs to us. It gives a company way too much power and where there's power, abuse of it is bound to follow. Even if the vast majority is not affected, that's a problem. There should be clear limits to how much of a slave they can make you by signing a work contract, it should consider both sides and protect each's interests as much as possible. Meaning the company should be able to punish any offence where the employee provably used company assets or work hours to pursue his own project. But an employee expressing himself as a person outside of work is not a companies property, it mustn't be. Especially when it tries to include any type of creative work and in my opinion even when bringing the experience you gain working at a company into your own projects. Work hours is when you agree with a company to offer your skills to them, outside of that they should only voluntarily offer to take influence on your private life (like making sure employees can talk to someone when having problems outside of work) and otherwise have fuck all to do with what you do with your life, certainly it shouldn't be legal for them to just take whatever they want from you for being a person who happened to create something valuable.
There should be laws in place that provide clear limits to such agreements that can't be overstepped, both for the rights of a company and the rights of an employee. Only then we allow us to say we have done what we can to avoid examples where anyone was taken unfair advantage of. Every rare case of a company laying claim to a person's self expression outside of work and every case where an employee takes advantage of his employer for personal gains should be equally frowned upon.
The problem is the blanket statement of "everything you produce outside of the time we pay you to work for us" belongs to us. It gives a company way too much power and where there's power, abuse of it is bound to follow. Even if the vast majority is not affected, that's a problem. There should be clear limits to how much of a slave they can make you by signing a work contract, it should consider both sides and protect each's interests as much as possible. Meaning the company should be able to punish any offence where the employee provably used company assets or work hours to pursue his own project. But an employee expressing himself as a person outside of work is not a companies property, it mustn't be. Especially when it tries to include any type of creative work and in my opinion even when bringing the experience you gain working at a company into your own projects. Work hours is when you agree with a company to offer your skills to them, outside of that they should only voluntarily offer to take influence on your private life (like making sure employees can talk to someone when having problems outside of work) and otherwise have fuck all to do with what you do with your life, certainly it shouldn't be legal for them to just take whatever they want from you for being a person who happened to create something valuable.
There should be laws in place that provide clear limits to such agreements that can't be overstepped, both for the rights of a company and the rights of an employee. Only then we allow us to say we have done what we can to avoid examples where anyone was taken unfair advantage of. Every rare case of a company laying claim to a person's self expression outside of work and every case where an employee takes advantage of his employer for personal gains should be equally frowned upon.
Weird that I worked for Disney for years, shipping a multiplatform title with them, AND had that clause in my contract
Really, really weird
Just strange
The programmer works at a company producing entertainment media though. It's not like someone creating their own music in their free time couldn't be considered related or competing.
Yeah, this is normal. I work in oil and gas, and I had to get permission from my company to keep the rights to my open source hobby game engine. They were perfectly OK with it because what use would they have for a game engine?
Now if my hobby was developing an open source alternative to their product instead, then we might have a problem.
I'm in Europe too for what it's worth, so definitely not just a US thing.
Now if my hobby was developing an open source alternative to their product instead, then we might have a problem.
I'm in Europe too for what it's worth, so definitely not just a US thing.
UK dev chiming in:
I've had the full scale "anything you make while employed is ours" section in my contract that I've mostly managed to re-negotiate to "anything on company time", "not a direct competitor" or get an immediate waiver for.
BUT
The fact that the language starts out as "anything" and not just "during company hours/using company property" is a massive red flag that shouldn't even need to be argued, standard or not. People have the right to do what they want with their own free time and equipment and this shouldn't need to be negotiated. Presenting a contract like that to a junior or first timer who isn't going to question it is scummy as hell, and "yeah, but they'll be fine if they just talk to legal/HR" doesn't really matter when that's not on the bit of paper that's been signed. Just because people can get an okay NOW doesn't mean they can get an okay LATER.
I get that it's a difficult to prove thing, because who can say what hasn't been made or worked on because of such clauses. Which is all the more reason that the "standard" clause can get in the bin.
I've had the full scale "anything you make while employed is ours" section in my contract that I've mostly managed to re-negotiate to "anything on company time", "not a direct competitor" or get an immediate waiver for.
BUT
The fact that the language starts out as "anything" and not just "during company hours/using company property" is a massive red flag that shouldn't even need to be argued, standard or not. People have the right to do what they want with their own free time and equipment and this shouldn't need to be negotiated. Presenting a contract like that to a junior or first timer who isn't going to question it is scummy as hell, and "yeah, but they'll be fine if they just talk to legal/HR" doesn't really matter when that's not on the bit of paper that's been signed. Just because people can get an okay NOW doesn't mean they can get an okay LATER.
I get that it's a difficult to prove thing, because who can say what hasn't been made or worked on because of such clauses. Which is all the more reason that the "standard" clause can get in the bin.
Lol, you really don't get it do you?
And making up definitions of capitalism followed by a meme does not help you
I don't care how standard it is. Fair IP agreements are something that I feel should be fought for.
At my place of work we have a "Anything produced using company equipment" rule, which is pretty reasonable. Much better than the "We own basically anything you make" type agreements.
Thankfully, living somewhere which has basic worker protections, this stuff isn't standard here.
At my place of work we have a "Anything produced using company equipment" rule, which is pretty reasonable. Much better than the "We own basically anything you make" type agreements.
Thankfully, living somewhere which has basic worker protections, this stuff isn't standard here.
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So if you work as a programmer and go home and write a children's book your employer owns your book despite them having nothing to do with each other.
I'm in the medical services industry and this is in my contract too. Basically you can't siphon clients from a practice to your private practice, so some contracts prohibit private side practices while employed.
Nothing surprising here.
Nothing surprising here.
The creator of Bratz dolls used to be employed at Mattel working on Barbie. He quit and made the Bratz lineup. He and Mattel have been in a legal battle over the Bratz dolls and license for over a decade now.
But she works under EA's watchful eye. Why should I believe her?
I mean, that's one incredibly specific example involving a billion dollar company that was in direct competition with Barbie. And guess what? MGA still won. The majority of people in this thread are talking about things akin to garage band albums. Companies will never care and they know they're on shaky ground even if they do.
...no
These hypotheticals are starting to make less sense somehow.
We've had multiple developers in this thread talk about how they've released anything from books to video games created on the side with EA's blessing, so this is clearly nonsense.
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It is unheard of to control works not made on company premises or company time.
Unfortunately - it is totally heard of. It also really sucks, and it amazes me that there are people who actively defend such a shitty anti-worker practice.
It's also not standard practice in reasonable countries.
That is absolutely false. Multiple posters have already disputed that and it's true at the company I work at too (not a videogame company).
I was exaggerating but you're out of your mind if you think this level of control is common practice.
Non-compete clauses are all too common. All creative work controls are not common and should not be accepted as reasonable contracts.
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it's in the contract that they've signed so lawsuit will happen
no, it isn't. Though, it should be mentioned this isn't control. This is basically the company asking you to clarify what you are working on and what resources you are using (all resources must be owned by the employee so no using the company issued laptops). This way, you(the employee) are protected from litigation. It's very unlikely they'll deny the request unless it's competing against the employer. Let me tell you a secret, companies don't actually like to sue. It's a headache with legal fees, employees having to potentially take time off to appear in court, and messy.
Yea this is 100% standard contract stuff. Most companies will give you a waiver so long as your side project does not compete directly with what you do at work.
Last time I was FTE at Microsoft they were quite different. They had changed about 5 years ago now to a Moonlighting policy that just gave employees free reign to work on side projects and just advised they should not work on side projects that directly competed with the product they worked on at Microsoft.
Last time I was FTE at Microsoft they were quite different. They had changed about 5 years ago now to a Moonlighting policy that just gave employees free reign to work on side projects and just advised they should not work on side projects that directly competed with the product they worked on at Microsoft.
Requoting an earlier post to emphasize the typical rules behind this ownership.
I'll also add that in borderline cases (e.g. working on something barely related to the company's business) companies would not sue. It has to be a slam dunk conflict-of-interest.
Contrary to popular belief on Era, big corporations do not sue people or wield big lawyerhammers for teh lulz.
I'll also add that in borderline cases (e.g. working on something barely related to the company's business) companies would not sue. It has to be a slam dunk conflict-of-interest.
Contrary to popular belief on Era, big corporations do not sue people or wield big lawyerhammers for teh lulz.
Amazon publishes their own books. These companies do everything these days. They'll be fine once you clear it.
Outside of work hrs does not necessarily mean they are at home...just not on the clock. You think they are creating games on their home pc?
I've worked in tech support in the UK for about 15 years now and something to this effect has been in every contract I've signed. I've never given it a second thought and it's never been an issue, even though I make extra income as a musician.
Infact I just checked this and the contract for my previous job had 2 pages dedicated to this specific thing, yet they had no problems with me recording and selling music.
Infact I just checked this and the contract for my previous job had 2 pages dedicated to this specific thing, yet they had no problems with me recording and selling music.
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Yes. Also, the company owns every single pee and poop that comes out of your body. I hope you've been collecting them in jars and place in cold storage, or EA's company lawyers will be coming after you.
Also, all of your assets and money belong to EA too. And your children. And their grand-children.
Congratulations, you've just signed up your entire future generation to slave labor to EA for all of eternity.
Parents too. All belong to EA because this is totally a clause about ownership for forever.