

Employment Question – What's yours is ours? - the_unknown

Every so often on HN I see a question about those employment clauses where the company wants to claim everything you do in your personal life as being &quot;theirs&quot;.<p>Is this unique to the tech industry (and if so why do we put up with it) or is this a general issue across the board?<p>I can see it potentially being there for artists&#x2F;musicians though in a more direct manner - where a singer can&#x27;t just start up a second singing career but if they embark on a photography or painting career the music company wouldn&#x27;t claim to own it (perhaps?).
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Arelius
IANAL, but I get the impression that it may actually be in our contract
because in many industries, it's much less contentious and has become standard
that way. Take for instance, if I were a nuclear engineer. The equipment so
expensive, and knowledge so specialized, that anything that one does in their
free-time that is nuclear related is very clearly a derivative work, that
these clauses are pretty much just an extension of don't steal our work and go
to a competitor. And other things one may do, say woodworking, is so clearly
hobby, and so unrelated that the issue would never stand up in court such that
the issue is never debated.

But that's just been my understanding, I could be very mistaken.

