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Old 08-13-2014, 08:12 AM  
Zyber
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Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 832
Quote:
Originally Posted by RummyBoy View Post
Anyone got a ready made employment contract for coder, with NDA, giving you ownership of the code and basically stopping your coder stealing the code blah blah. If not, can you suggest a place to find one.

Any help appreciated......
So in other words you want to steal from the coder instead?

I'll explain.
When the programmer codes he/she writes code based on the his/her education, previous experience and technical knowledge.

So you want to have ownership of those things, and prevent this programmer from ever using the same ideas/concepts again? Despite that you yourself take advantage of the programmer's previous experience and knowledge.

What I would suggest instead is that you make the following deal with the programmer:

The coder retains the full ownership over the code. You, as the client, get unlimited usage rights and the right to modify the code.

That way you are not trying to steal the programmer's intellectual property.

In regards to NDA's they are a double-edged sword. People get tons of ideas all the time. So the potential client can just write any generic simple idea in an NDA, and then exclusively prevent the programmer from making such project. In a way it is a free pseudo-"patent" you can impose on any programmer who is stupid enough to sign the NDA trap.

An example: You make the programmer sign the NDA. Then you tell the programmer "My ingenious idea is that I want to make an online webshop". Then the programmer cannot make any webshops for any other clients or for himself.
Or another clever idea you can tell after the victim has signed the NDA: "I want to use HTML". Now this poor programmer cannot use HTML either in his future projects. NDA's and non-compete clauses are directly evil.

So let the programmer retain ownership over the code, and let him grant you unlimited usage rights for the code he produced for you. That's the most fair for both parties.
Good luck


PS: I see you were asking for an employment contract. Most of my advice is based on a freelance / B2B situation instead of having an in-house coder. In that case you should probably get the full ownership over the code, and give the programmer unlimited usage rights (+ right to modify the code).
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