Employer Code Ownership

From memory transfer of copyright requires a written contract in the US; so be it your employment contract or a freelancers contract it needs to be written down. I have had contracts where I have successfully negotiated having that clause removed. Just because someone pays you to write code doesn't necessarily mean that at the end they own the copyright. Some jurisdictions however have implicit transfer of copyright in work for hire situations so consult a lawyer and make sure it is always

Depends entirely on the employment agreement. Many will automatically assign ownership of any code written to the employer.

The company probably owns the code as it's related to your company, even if you did it in your free time.

It depends on the IP clauses in your contract. A common stipulation is that they own everything you do on company time or resources unless you file specific exceptions. Given that this was a hack week project for the company, if your contract has such a clause, you're probably boned.

IANAL: but with nothing signed, it's you're code I believe, since it's your original work.I suggest looking into copyright law. (This is why contractors must/usually sign "work for hire" clauses, proclaiming that the work is made for the company they're contracting with)

Your employer will own your code if you do this.

I don't know how copyright laws work in Russia, but it's a bit of a gray area in America when you write code for someone unless it's explicitly spelled out in the contract. The end product (compiled binary or whatever they're paying for to "just work") belongs to them, but the source code does not belong to them unless it's explicitly stated in a work-for-hire contract that all of your intellectual property goes to them while you're hired. I always make it

Maybe write into your contract that you own the copyright of the code until you get paid?

I worked for a company that tried to do the same:1. It's not standard. I've yet to meet another developer that encounter this kind of clause and I've yet to be in that situation as well.2. you can't. I had the same issue with my novel. They said "Well, we wouldn't care about that" as a response but "caring" and having the right to is completely different.3. They'd probably try to say that he used work equipment or code4. You can; howe

By default in the US the person paying the contractor to write the code owns it.But, that does not mean there is anything wrong with the contractor asking for an alternative agreement.I do a lot of contracting work and my clients always own 100% of my code: but I could see that if I were to be approached to write something I could then market to my other clients (a lot of them are in finance) maybe I could ask them to develop for free or cheap to do that.I don't see any problem wit