Protecting Your Code and IP When Doing Contract or Freelance Work
I run into this scenario a lot as a freelance developer. Companies will request that any code you write for their project will 100% belong to them. They want to own all of the IP (intellectual property) for every line of code and they’ll ask you to sign contracts to agree. A vast majority of companies just take existing contracts they have for their full time employees, tweak a few sentences to make it apply to contract work and then call it a day. So it’s no surprise that you’ll eventually get to the section of the contract on code ownership and you’ll get hit with a wall of text that says you forfeit the right to use, reuse, copy, talk about, write about or distribute any line of code outside the context of this project. Full Time Employment and Contracts Are Different The limitations imposed by the above contract are pretty strict but if you’re a full time employee and that’s the only code base you’ll be working on for the next few years, then it’s not totally out of the ...