Intellectual property rights.

[Steve Fouts <sfouts -at- ELLISON -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>]

Steve Owens writes:
|}      This was originally written for the University of Pittsburgh,
|} and even though I've extensively rewritten it and it never did see the
|} light of day in its original form, I requested and received permission
|} to redistribute it, just to be on the safe side (maybe some of the
|} copyright mavens here can tell me just when it stops being the
|} original work-for-hire and when it starts being a new work, given that
|} it's all based on internal knowledge).

I think that it depends quite a bit on how your contract was written. If
I write _anything_ that is even remotely connected to what I do on the
job, whether or not I do it using T.I. equipment or T.I. time, T.I. owns
the copyright and the right of first refusal. Wow. That is actually
tailored primarily for the intellectual rights of stuff invented by our
engineers, but it applies to me too. Theory is that I can't objectively
decide the difference between ``my own'' knowledge, and job related
knowledge that was ``given'' to me by T.I., so the lawyers will decide
whether or not it relates to T.I. business or not, and whether T.I. wants
a cut or not...

I don't know what kind of cast-iron jockey shorts your former employer
put you in, but if it was me, and if if T.I. were my former, rather
than present, employer, especially if there were some sort of tangible
evidence that I began writing it while working here, and I wanted to
publish the work for money, I'd GIVE T.I. the right of first refusal,
just to be on the safe side. Your mileage may vary.

    _______________________
   /  ___  __/__\  \ /  / _\    Steve Fouts
  /___ \|  |  ___\  |  /  __\   sfouts -at- ellison -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com
 /   /  \  |      \   /      \
/_______/__|_______\_/________\ "These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper,
but _minds_ alive on the shelves."      -- Gilbert Highet