Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
As someone whose full time job is to write software for a company: No it isn't.
They pay me to do a job, the job is writing software for them, it is a work for hire..
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Exactly the attitude of Stratemeyer Syndicate and Disney. That's why I referenced Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Programmers are mostly treated worse than Ghost Writers, who may or may not have copyright, but morally should have a proportion of the royalties.
Yes, absolutely the law is that they own the copyright entirely because you are purely hired.
But it's actually legalised intellectual theft. Programming isn't like production assembly, serving in a shop or restaurant, support in a call centre. It's mostly a creative intellectual activity built on prior art. There needs to be reform. There should be a sharing of the copyright.
But either way, no matter if you a purely a hired labourer, OR a creative person with a suitable contract, the software is automatically copyright as it's written.
I had a royalty clause in my last contract. I wrote it in and said, "It's not greedy, accept it or I walk away." It never amounted to anything, and famously film companies have often artificially made a loss to avoid paying royalties to actors or scriptwriters. But it was the moral principle. Designing and implementing software isn't an activity that only happens at the desk in hours, and like writing a novel, it's not an automatic style of activity like non-creative jobs.