"Under statute, copyright is only automatically owned by an employer if it is created by the employee in the course of his employment. On that basis, code written in an employee's spare time and outside of the scope of what he is doing for his job would belong to the developer. However, many employment contracts (particularly for jobs that are centred around the development of IP for the company to exploit - such as software development) include the transfer of ownership to the company in much broader cases. This might capture any code developed that relates to the business of the company (eg. any computer games), whether written entirely at home and not using company resources."
I get written waivers for all work that I don't want my employer to own.
"Under statute, copyright is only automatically owned by an employer if it is created by the employee in the course of his employment. On that basis, code written in an employee's spare time and outside of the scope of what he is doing for his job would belong to the developer. However, many employment contracts (particularly for jobs that are centred around the development of IP for the company to exploit - such as software development) include the transfer of ownership to the company in much broader cases. This might capture any code developed that relates to the business of the company (eg. any computer games), whether written entirely at home and not using company resources."
I get written waivers for all work that I don't want my employer to own.