Writing on company time
Filed under Soapbox on May 12, 2004
Tagged: copyright
Author’s Note: This post has been edited from it’s original form.
My wife and I were discussing my progress on Maiden over the weekend and she made the suggestion that perhaps I write some of it at work. I don’t remember what prompted the comment, whether I was lamenting my job or the struggle to write at home. Whatever it was isn’t really germane to the direction I’m taking this.
My immediate reaction was to dismiss the idea. The most obvious reason for not working on a story while at the job is that it could result in disciplinary action. (Makes you wonder why I blog when I do.) But more importantly, there is the question of copyright.
I’m not a lawyer, but I did take a copyright law class in college, and some of the cases we looked at involved work done on company time and/or company equipment. Most of the cases involved software where the programming was done while the creator worked for someone else, and if it was done while the employee was at work or using company equipment, the company won. There were some exceptions that usually had to do with the percentage done at the company in relation to the whole of the work. It’s not something I want to risk, though.
