Dave Korn <dave.korn.cyg...@googlemail.com> writes: > I don't quite see that. If the company disclaims ownership of the > stuff that you create working on GCC as part of your job, well, they've > disclaimed ownership of it, regardless of the fact that you created it > while working on GCC as part of your job, no? Berne convention and all > that, it is you who created the creative work, the copyright is yours > *unless and until* you have assigned it to someone, and usually that > someone is your employer because the assignment is part of your contract > of employment.
I should probably not really be responding to legal threads on this list, and I'm sure someone will point out that it's more complicated than this and one needs to talk to a real lawyer, but note that the disposition of copyright around work-for-hire is an aspect of the law, not something that exists only in contracts. Even if your contract with your employer says absolutely nothing about copyright, work done for hire for your employer is still owned by that employer. I believe the contract would have to explicitly say that this is *not* the case for you to be able to retain ownership of copyright of work that you did for hire. -- Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
