>how is ["Imo journalists should be allowed and should (honestly I don't know if they are or not, probably not) repost their stories on their own personal websites."] any different than saying a programmer should be able to keep code they wrote at a company? You don't own it.

Fourth Estate and Public Interest. Journalism and programming in most cases serve different needs. Journalism serves the public interest (in theory).

Less life-and-death with music journalism, but it's still culturally important.

Although tbh, in the case of games and programming of critical importance (safety of life, elections, healthcare, large-scale finance) and cultural importance (games) I wouldn't be against a set of industry-specific regulations that stop the source code being effectively obliterated. Keep it like classified country secrets, consider declassifying it after 30 years.

The code the programmer wrote is used and turned into (compiled) into a product and those downstream products are used as tools, but for the writer, it's the writing itself that's used directly and published and publicised. If, as a programmer, I'm working on an Open Source project, who keeps the code when I switch corporate masters?

It's no different. The programmer should be able to keep their code as well. Labor is entitled to all that it produces.

Right now, the way it works is that you produce code, then you give that code to your employer, and they give you money in exchange for the exclusive use of that code. The code and the money change hands.

What you're proposing is that you produce code, then your employer gives you money in exchange for use of the code -- but you also get to keep the code and do whatever you want with it? Why would an employer agree to that?

It’s my opinion that, barring areas like (for example) nuclear missile guidance software, technologists should generally get to keep their own reference copy of work products.

Before knowledge work was near exclusively performed on computers, it was not uncommon for people to preserve their own reference copy of work they had performed, and it wasn’t all that frowned upon.

Technology exists (for example DLP applied to endpoints by MDM) that enables the (at least ostensible or plausible) prevention of this but it mostly keeps honest people honest.

> Why would an employer agree to that?

Because they are rational people who understand that data copied isn't a loss for them, and would rather attract more passionate leftists (if that's what your going for) to work with than people in a wage-slave mentality...

But everyone's going to do what they're going to do... regardless of if it makes sense or not, and having old (materialistic-centric) world views on digital content distribution is something we are going to have to learn to outgrow sooner than later.

Maybe it would jive better with the old school mentality if the diction of 'licensing to the employer' was non-exclusive as a default: resulting in higher wages where an exclusive license is actually required (or legal or moral/ethical reasons).

Being generally open about software makes the wages go up, not down. More of us get more done, faster, while exponentially increasing gains by contributing back. Open Source is the Way.

>>Why would an employer agree to that?

If I sell a book to Random House, Random House gives me money in exchange for the publishing rights to the book, but 35 years later under the copyright act reversion clause I can apply for the publishing rights back regardless of what the publishing contract says. Why would Random House agree to publish books?

Your example gives Random House 35 years of exclusive rights. While not indefinite, it's still worth paying for, just as financial options are worth paying for, even though they eventually expire, too.

The grandparent example gives Random House 0 years of exclusive rights, which means the author could directly compete against them from the start.

AS WELL THEY SHOULD!!!

If an author can do a better job: the publishing house needs the run for its money... for it has gotten fat and lazy.

The great grandparent discussion was of MTV taking down a web site and the idea that the authors should get back the rights at that point.

This would not harm MTV seeing as they were doing nothing with the content.

> Why would an employer agree to that?

Because someone realizes of the power disparity between employee and employer, and legislates them into doing it.

Also, realizing that 99% of all code is useless out of context. The value of an e-commerce site, for example, isn't in the code itself that runs the shopping cart and website, but in the relationship with vendors and in the marketing talent to get your site popular compared to others.

Why not? They still own the copyright. And code is useless/worthless without engineers.

Or, much shorter reply than my other one: when I was a kid my mother took me to the public library which was a bit away so we took the streetcar. Passengers entered and bought tickets from the tram driver, so I asked my mom, can the driver keep the money he's getting? I found it highly unjustified and unjust he has to turn over the money when his work is done. After all, Labor is entitled to all it produces.

I've been trying to think where else this could apply and can't come up with anything. Farm labour doesn't keep the food, factory labour not the products, shipping not the packages. Accountants not the bank accounts or company ledgers. As a programmer, code that I am paid to produce is not my code to keep. The code wouldn't exist at all if not for the particular business domain that was not mine in the first place.

The example above is also about keeping public clippings of their work that they sold (were paid for). It would be like taking screenshots of a public website or something and that being okay. [added] I also don't know if they can repost a story on a personal website, I would guess the NYT or who ever would not want a paid reporter's website to steal traffic by creating a kind of fan base and probably pay the more well known reporters more than rookies because they drive viewership.

Chefs keeping copies of the recipes they came up with for their employers, screenwriters keeping scripts, authors keeping early drafts, musicians keeping sheet music, photographers keeping prints (if not negatives), any job where someone is expected to keep and maintain a portfolio

Good examples, I seriously could not think of any.

The difference I see is that those are works that are produced on ones own and then sold to buyers (except maybe the chef, I'm not familiar with that area.) Code, in the above context, is not created first and then sold to the business (unless its code/software one own in the first place). It is work that happens after a problem arises and then one is hired to provide a specific business domain solution.

> Labor is entitled to all that it produces

I sympathize but must disagree. The guy you paid to paint a wall—does he own the paint (that you presumably had to pay for, too)? Is he entitled to, what?, the paint on the wall or the fact that this particular paint is sticking to this particular wall in a particular way? Or the fact that's now pink? and when you want to change it to blue later, you have to ask them or negotiate a fee with them? What could that person claim, materially or idealistically?

There's some precedence in that at least over here in Germany, architects have come to maintain a copyright of sorts (actually, Urheberrecht I believe, "creator's right") over the physical architecture they designed. Whether it's opt-in, opt-out or mandated by law I do not know, what I do know is that it made some people very angry when they experienced constant leakage in a building by a famous architect whose name I shall not bring forward here, but who is a complete moron and famous for his leaking designs. All the owners (owners!) of the house wanted was to install a frigging rain gutter, but the architect long declined (he finally did cave in and installed the ugliest stainless-steel 'sculpture' that ever hurt your vision). I'm much more of a preserver than I am a friend of the modern BS that too often replaces sound old structures, but I do not understand owners who agree not to own the building they paid for, including the lawful modification or destruction of it, as the case may be. There have actually been cases where existing structures of a public building had to be torn down when an architect fell out with the stakeholders, just because the guy claimed his rights to the already built—wait for it—four elevator shafts for crying out loud. Judging from that perspective, I can understand anyone who pays for work to be done to play the safe game and make sure all rights are waived by the creator.

In the case of a typical programming job—that's often done collectively. Using a version control system like Git you could probably figure out exactly which character sequences a give programmer put into the—finished? intermediate version of?—product, but don't get me started about the bugs that needed several revisions, or the rights of the project manager whose chose to interfere—erm, help out—during development. Does the PM get rights to character sequences?

Surely that depends on the arrangement between employer and employee.

security nightmare. but i see where you're coming from

Transparency improves security, while secrecy hinders it.

not by default. you can let employees have unrestricted access to code/IP and expect security to improve