Appreciate the responses: but this is where the water is getting murkier. A number of vendor/contracting firms aren't asking for these anymore because of blanket IP contracts signed between the firm and the customers. Said contracts haven't reached appelate court challenges (yet), but are construed by some drafters as binding.

Where I tend to find issues with current IP-centric thought is in the way it overlooks equity. As an example:

Win7 introduced the next evolution in Dr. Watson troubleshooting but making packs that automatically look up errors and bugs in a MS service farm, and return with automatic/ghosted fixes or little pop-ups telling you how to address the issue. This is brilliant. It saves the end user support costs for common issues and also saves MS a tremendous amount money paying for first tier Help Desk resources. I'm also willing to bet the Dev that thought this up and evangelized it until it was built started recording metrics to put a $ value on how much this tech has saved the company in operating costs (and as Win7 is more expensive than previous, etc, perhaps an attributed $ value to the sales of the product).

Now, if a salesperson were responsible for generating let's say $15,000,000 in sales, they'd be experiencing quite a large commission. This Dev, however, likely did get a promotion and probably a bonus - but we're not talking about the levels comparable to a commission.

I also think about more famous Devs or producers like Sid Meier or Kai who were able to create blockbuster products, but retained royalties - but that sort of thing doesn't happen today. Blockbuster products come out from blockbuster studios, sure - but the guy who drove it isn't getting famous unless he paid to have it made himself.

 

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That is interesting to think about. I wonder if as a developer it's easier to gain cred if you really put yourself out there -- have a blog, give talks, write books and articles, contribute heavily to open-source projects, that sort of thing. But in the commercial world I don't know whether you can necessarily do that very easily (do you have to have the blessing of your employer?) and it's true that you're not likely to see any royalties from your most ground-breaking work. It's unfair, but I guess that's just the way these things go. Maybe that's why so many people try to launch startups.

 

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this strikes me as being more of a compensation issue rather than IP

 

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But the purpose of IP is fundamentally about compensation (or profits).

One of the bedrock issues surrounding IP is not pirated copies of software and movies being mass-distributed in China and India (though that is mostly what we hear about), but rather dividing the line of ownership, and thus profits.

Here's a different example:

A business analyst thinks they can address a process money sink if a new development system is made to plug a hole in data colation, let's say it's a CRM process that doesn't talk to services. Now, they flush out a business case, make an SRS, and present it: but they get shot down. The analyst knows this is worthwhile, so spends time or maybe even quits to make this solution a reality. And when the product is launched and it turns out to be successful, the former analyst, now owner of this product is sued under IP laws. Current laws would sustain that the product is the intellectual property of the company that shot down the development.

 

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On the contracts that I have signed the basic premise has been; if you do any development or enhancement, even if something was already a working version before you signed the contract, on any application or program on any contract business owned equipment or during paid contract hours, then that piece of software becomes property of the contractor, including, but not limited to, work done for the 3rd party employer for whom your services are being rendered. I had encountered this debate with an employer before when I gave notice, where a lower manager wanted to take ownership of the app in my sig from me, but was overruled by the CIO. The manager in question was 65% of the reason I left the company.

EDIT: As far was what I think. It does bear merit that when you develop for a client, then that client owns what you develop. However, it does get a bit muddy when talking about very minor enhancements to something that was fully intact prior to the assignment and that item simply was a useful tool for the environment. In that case I would say, it still belongs to the developer and I would hope, depending on length of prior ownership and development, that most companies would be honorable about the situation.

 

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Intellectual property is a coercive monopolistic privilege granted by the state, it can only exist under threat of force hence it is immoral becuase people must suffer for it to exist and be used.

It is slavery of knowledge, nothing more

 

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Some very interesting things to think about in this thread. IP rights are going to be a huge area of the law (already are, but it's going to get even bigger) in the coming decade.

depends if the engineer invented something that requires a patent.

 

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Only if individuals allow government to maintain this farcical and evil system . The internet is showing a lot of people that IP is nothing more than an attempt by the state to control and coerce at the behest of industries with outdated business models.

 

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