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Comment by madsbuch | Hacker News Reader

The top comment is interesting:

> If you wrote this software during your working time (nine to five), and were paid for that time, then the company owns the software.

I don't live in the US, but copyright laws are quite homogeneous world wide. But I do have the impression that copyright is kept as long as it is not signed over.

given that the person did logistics without an employment contract, he could notice the company that he retracts all rights to use the software wrote.

Of cause that would cause havoc to the company, and they could probably counter sue that he did something incurring the liability that he was never asked to.

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It's important to separate copyright, right of use and ownership. In Europe, copyrights are often not transferable: you will have forever written that line after all. What is transferable, and implicit or explicit in a work contract, is the right of use. Usually the employer has and exclusive right to use, and usually they won't relinquish it upon your leave.

i think the distinction is better described as copyright vs authorship right. you can sell the right to copy, but you can't give up the right to have your name associated with your work.

> But I do have the impression that copyright is kept as long as it is not signed over.

The US has the "work for hire" concept - if an employee creates work as part of their regular duties, their employer is considered both the author and the copyright owner.

For example, if you have employees take photographs of finished products, using company devices, on company time, and as part of their assigned duties, there is essentially zero question that the copyright owner of those photographs is the employer, regardless of whether this is explicitly lined out in an employment agreement.

The employment agreement definitely helps in that it preempts most disputes over what the employer's expectations are, but it is by no means necessary.

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ30.pdf

It's mostly a distinction without much difference. In jurisdictions were copyright is non-transferable, it will always be with the natural person who created the work. But all these jurisdictions allow transferring exclusive rights of use, so that's what happens instead.

If you want to get really technical, something like "Copyright (c) 2024 CompanyName SE" is literally impossible by the letter of the law in these jurisdictions. Courts of course understand that this is meant to be shorthand for "The exclusive rights to use this work authored in 2024 by an unnamed party are with CompanyName SE".

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