Bringing your own tools to work

rollin

Heyho,

did someone have to think about how to license or use own (privately build) tools to the company one works?

Just wondering about this lately.
Cheers

Neox

wondering why?

we supply our employees with the tools they need. unless its some really unreasonable stuff that really doesnt apply to our work.

poopipe

You mean tools you wrote? 

Check your contract but the chances are they already own them.  It's pretty standard for there to be a clause that gives them  rights to anything you develop while employed whether you did it on your own time or not.

rollin

@Neox
I'm wondering because this is the situation right know.  

@poopipe
I probably misunderstood what you wrote. But I mean tools I wrote before entering a contract or in any way tools I write outside of working hours.

Anyway. It seems I either just use it on my workstation - or - I publish it on github or similar and just download it. 
But would be interesting if I would have some bigger tool with shop page running like the one guy who developed Worldmachine. 

Of course I know this depends on individual agreements but was curious if someone had made some similar agreements in the past.

Neox

ahhhh now i understood. okay thats an interesting situation. well as long as just you use them i dont see a big issue. talk to the local admin folks. if you want the studio to use the tools, think about how this should take place and if you want / need compensation.

poopipe

Neox is right I think

To license your tool to the studio you might need an independent evaluation as obviously there's a conflict of interest if you're recommending your own product - personally I've never tried that.

What I mean is that if you write the tool while you're employed - even if the work is done outside your working hours - it will usually belong to your employer and they might want a cut of any moneys you make from it - especially if it can be seen as a competing product -  IIRC The guy who designed the Bratz dolls got into quite a lot of shit over that as he previously worked on Barbie (or similar)

rollin

poopipe said:

Neox is right I think

To license your tool to the studio you might need an independent evaluation as obviously there's a conflict of interest if you're recommending your own product - personally I've never tried that.

What I mean is that if you write the tool while you're employed - even if the work is done outside your working hours - it will usually belong to your employer and they might want a cut of any moneys you make from it - especially if it can be seen as a competing product -  IIRC The guy who designed the Bratz dolls got into quite a lot of shit over that as he previously worked on Barbie (or similar)

I hardly doubt the work belongs to the employer as long as you're not using intellectual property from there. But that's not a topic I want to get into.

Maybe at some point someone stumbles across this thread with some experience about this. So long I'll handle this as a personal tool I use only on my workstation. 

But not sure what you mean with "conflict of interest".. I'm obviously the best and greatest developer in the world and selling my stuff for 10 bucks per seat is literally for free - really.

Neox

rollin said:

I hardly doubt the work belongs to the employer as long as you're not using intellectual property from there. But that's not a topic I want to get into.

Maybe at some point someone stumbles across this thread with some experience about this. So long I'll handle this as a personal tool I use only on my workstation. 

But not sure what you mean with "conflict of interest".. I'm obviously the best and greatest developer in the world and selling my stuff for 10 bucks per seat is literally for free - really.

i dont think thats possible in europe, let alone in germany. but it certainly is a thing in the US.

i have seen contracts with stuff like this in them. i also have seen this stuff being tried here, but it had zero legal weight, thanks to our Urheberrecht.

If you used company equipment to write tools, the lines start to blur tho. It can definitely get messy in cases, but i guess the stuff you are talking about wouldn't be such things.

Say you worked at allegorithmic and wrote your own texture AI tool and sold it later, this is where things might get nasty, even over here.

maybe hit up Paul Greveson aka MoP or RenderHJS, Adnan who just left quixel for his own tool making studio? Some of those tool guys must have run into that issue

poopipe

There's a clause in my (UK)contract that basically says the company can claim ownership of anything I produce at any point during the time I work for them.
This is regardless of whether I used their equipment or did the work on my own time.

The clause is discretionary and historically they've been quite nice  about it  but the same or similar clause has been present in every contract I've signed in my career - that includes places outside the UK (I've not worked in Europe since 2003 but that was post euro ..)