Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Words written in the employ of a company belong to the company. Still, others will ask for them. Beware as you could be an accomplice to theft.

I am writing a few posts about copyright. I am compelled to do so by recent interviews with employers who seem ignorant of copyright basics. There is much good information on copyright and intellectual property rights online. The Wikipedia article is one good place to begin learning.

Sometimes writers don’t own their words. I have written many pieces while employed by a company. I wrote those on the job in the pay of the company. The company O W N S those pieces and those words. If I take a copy of those words home and give them to others, I am a T H I E F.

Excuse the over emphasis, but the content of the above paragraph seems to be unknown to many writers, other creators, and potential employers.

I have interviewed for jobs as a proposal writer. One frequent request is, “Can you provide us with copies of proposals you wrote in the past?”

This is a horrible request. Proposals written for companies are owned by those companies. Per above, if I take home the proposal (all or part), I am a thief, and the interviewer is requesting stolen property.

“Oh, but you can extract the parts of the proposal that you wrote and remove any proprietary information, and …”

No. I cannot. The above requests that I steal property, edit it, and hand it over.

Sorry. I hate to break the news to some persons, but that is the law regardless of what “everybody does all the time.”