Moral of this story, if you have or even think you have a great idea, do NOT become an employee (they own you), stay a contractor (you own you). Jm
-----Original Message----- From: Conrad A. Rockenhaus [mailto:conradr@skyphusion.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 10:17 PM To: Andy Dills Cc: Margie Arbon; nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Another reason to not use MAPS
On Tue, 7 May 2002, Andy Dills wrote:
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Now, MAPS has filed a lawsuit against a former employee. Why? Because he might interfere with their ability to make money by giving away something for free that they charge for!
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Precisely what other course of action could MAPS take?
You could let him do whatever he wants with it. The premise of you charging for access to the various databases was based on a need to cover cost, not a desire to profit. Now you act with motivations specifically based on a desire to protect profit.
The premise of charging covered costs to MAPS. It could be easily inferred that one of thoses costs is the providing of salaries and T&E to employees of MAPS.
The DUL was expanded, improved, and worked on by both the former employee and the other employees at MAPS, thereby making it a product of MAPS, not solely of Gordon Fecyk any longer.
While working on the DUL, Gordon was being paid by MAPS, was provided equipment by MAPS, and was supported by other MAPS employees, to build the DUL to where it is right now. Therefore, the DUL is legally property of MAPS.
Take this for example: You are working on a security product to deal with script kiddies. Security company A likes the idea, and brings you on, as a full time employee. You're paid and provided assistance to develop a and improve this method for dealing with script kiddies by security company a. You develop the product, and security company a provides it as a service. You leave security company a or your contract expires with security company a. Do you go out and sell this service because you developed it?
No, you legally can not. You legally can not because security company paid you as a full time employee and assisted you to develop this product, therefore, it is the intelluctual property of security company a.
Gordon had an idea. MAPS hired him, provided him with tools, provided him with industry contacts, provided him with the assistance of other employees, and provided him with a paycheck to improve and build on the DUL. Due to MAPS' assistance, Gordon, with the help of other MAPS employees, developed a very excellent service.
Since MAPS provided all of these items to Gordon, he was developing a service that MAPS and MAPS only could provide, in that form anyway.
If Gordon went out, developed another DUL on his own, developed his own independant documentation, etc., then MAPS would be invalid in suing Gordon.
However, that's not what he did. He took data that MAPS paid him and others to develop. He took documentation that he wrote while MAPS was paying him to do it. He took a model that MAPS paid him to develop. He stole from MAPS, pure and simple, and stealing is dishonorable, stupid, and WRONG, and he deserves what he gets.
In other words, you have no cred on this street corner. You have no moral high ground. You're just another microsft or network
solutions
complaining about how unfair it is, the injustice of the world!
This is not the case; as I said before, he was being paid by MAPS to develop his idea, to improve upon it, and other things. Taking something from a third party, even though you developed it, and selling it as your own when someone else paid for it is wrong, period. What he's doing meets the true definition of "theft."
Lets take it to another level. Xecunet hires someone, and that person has this great idea on how to make some webhosting solution better than everyone elses. Xecunet develops it, provides it as a "free upgrade" but then realizes that they need to cover some costs, so you start charging a little extra. Fine and good, right?
Well, your employee leaves and goes to some big webhosting company, and implements the idea. You paid him to develop the idea, and assisted with the research, how do you feel about that? Is he entitled to do that, to take something he developed for your company and implement it somewhere else? I wouldn't think so, then someone would of taken Windows from Microsoft a while back, and sold it as "Blinds" or something like that.
You used to be the vigilante force patrolling the net,
spam by any means neccessary. You did so because that was
net needed. Then you started to charge for it. Seems reasonable, and while it upset a lot of long-time contributors (you're making me pay for a service I helped build?), it made sense from the
that "Hey, we're losing our shirts here, we need money."
So, now, instead of fighting spam for free, you're fighting a spam fighter, the legal bills of which are paid for with the revenues generated based on you selling the intellectual property contributed by many people!
What other course of action could MAPS take? You could
looking to stop the what the point of view throw out the
people making decisions with their over-stuffed pocketbooks and re-invent yourself.
Stealing is wrong, and stealing needs to be stopped, period. MAPS is not fighting a "spam fighter." MAPS is fighting someone that was a former employee paid to develop a service to the level its at right now, so MAPS could provide it. Now he took the data used to provide that service, and everything related to it and is now marketing it as "his own" when in fact, its not.
So, you who subscribe to MAPS: When will you be cancelling your subscriptions? It's no longer about stopping spam with
them, now
it's about money. FWIW, the other blacklists out there are just as good. I particularly like njabl.org.
For those wishing to actually *read* the filings before passing judgement:
For those wishing to actually *think* about what MAPS is really doing here before passing judgement:
I looked. That still doesn't defend the fact that Gordon was being paid to improve this service by MAPS, that's pure and simple.
Just to give you some background on that, read this:
http://www.eff.org/CAF/law/multimedia-handbook And to just clarify what I'm pointing out in this: "Naturally, you don't need a copyright license for material which you create yourself. However, you should be aware that the rules regarding ownership of copyright are complex. You should not assume that you own the copyright if you pay an independent contractor to create the work (or part of it). In fact,generally the copyright in a work is owned by the individual who creates the work, except for full-time employees working within the scope of their employment and copyrights which are assigned in writing." Gordon was a full time employee. His work is property of MAPS. MAPS is on the right, and they are on the right with what they are doing, period. --conradr