The Legalese of Open Source and Social Media
I’m working on our contractor agreement, as well as the templates we use to create statements of work and contracts. Even in the conceptual stage, it’s slow going. These agreements will be a reflection of Prelude Interactive as a business, and will probably influence how we are perceived and dealt with by our workers and clients. Why can’t each document be “We Will Use Common Sense” followed by two signature blanks?
How do you apply an appropriate level of nondisclosure and protection of proprietary information in the age of social media? Can contractors send out status updates about the cool projects they are working on, or solicit ideas, without putting Prelude or the client at risk? Is there a way to define that? Ideally,
What’s the best way to support the symbiotic interchange of minor intellectual property that happens all the time between technical workers? This is the age of open source, after all. If you made a nifty widget for another employer and copy it into a Prelude project, is that ok? Do we need to cover all the permutations of creative commons, open source, BSD, MIT, and other licenses? Where is the line between minor intellectual property that nobody would bother enforcing like an email address validation function, and the seeds of a product that our clients need to protect?
If anybody out there has experience with forward-thinking legal documents that actually seem to address these concerns, please don’t be a stranger! Seen any cool ideas out there in your contracts? What do you think?
