Most tech contracts in the US stipulate that the company owns any IP you produce under some conditions. You can use this to give your employer a weird IP portfolio. Personally, I'm looking forward to Google owning an extensive collection of "Welcome Back, Kotter" fan fiction.
"Oops, I used my work computer for this by 'accident', better put '© Google' on 'The Sweathogs meet Dracula'."
@pganssle that sounds like you are given a fair degree of flexibility, providing your output conceptually fits the banner of some product. The contract might get weird but above all you can act autonomously which is great
@binsrc I don't think my boss would appreciate it if I were to spend work time on Welcome Back, Kotter fan fiction, but the default contract in NY state has employers owning any IP related to what your company does, plus anything done with company resources, so if I do it on my own time but use the work computer or something, my company has a strong claim to own it.
@pganssle I usually have a BYOD arrangement, I wonder with yours, how much the contract would change? It’s in their interest to have staff living out of work devices. I’ve seen salary staff leave their laptops at work for work life balance. I’ve always found my investment in the job overrides this mentality and I do all kinds of shit on work computers at home as well as a little extra work as a result. So when I start somewhere they have to invent or apply a BYOD policy.
@binsrc I refuse to use my work devices for everything. If I worked somewhere with a BYOD policy I would just buy a dedicated work laptop.
It is a bit inconvenient but definitely in your interests you have separate devices. Even assuming you aren't worried about a "messy break-up" situation, consider that in the highly likely event of your company being in a lawsuit, suddenly your entire laptop may be subject to discovery.
@pganssle fair call. My relationship with work is different, I have concurrent “customers”, and those relationships span years. There is no way I could manage anything other than BYOD. NDA’s already cover IP mess, I don’t think it matters what is sitting on my disks really all that much.
I have never worked for a US tech giant though. Nor have I had your specific experience, and my customers are probably little fish in comparison. :)
