#Amazon Removes Policy That Stole Employees’ Personal Game Projects » OmniGeekEmpire

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“#Amazon Removes Policy That Stole Employees’ Personal Game Projects » OmniGeekEmpire”

In one hell of bizarre news, Amazon had a policy that allowed them to basically steals Employees’ personal game projects. However, that has been rectified!

According to Game World Observer, James Liu, a software engineer at Google, has shared a piece of Amazon’s employment contract. The post went viral due to some rules the company allegedly has regarding creating your personal games as a hobby. Essentially, it read that if you were to create a game while working for them, they would own the right to your game. Many devs were discussing it on Twitter and well, it went semi-viral. Some employees found it ok, while others didn’t agree with this clause.

I have read similar clauses in my career, but this is by far the worst. I just can not comprehend the audacity that your employer wants to claim ownership of the stuff you make in your spare time. I admire people who have the energy to work consistently on a personal…

— Sascha Wagentrotz (@swagentrotz) July 8, 2021

Looks standard to me? I’ve had this at every AAA dev you work with. You get it taken out if it applies to you; that’s why it’s called ‘contract negotiation’

— DjArcas (@Fortress_Craft) July 7, 2021

The weirdest thing about this for me is that you’re allowed to develop games at all. Every contract I’ve had includes a non-compete clause that says you can’t develop *anything* outside of work. I’m not saying this contract is fair, just very different than what I’ve experience.

— Rez Graham (@rezibot) July 7, 2021

They don’t claim ownership over your IP, but you give them a right to sell/redistribute/clone/make derivative works anywhere and everywhere without paying you a cent for the rest of time.

— James Liu (@james7132) July 7, 2021

Truth be told, if you read your own job contract, there’s something like this as well. Heck, I remember when I read my job’s contract and it had something similar as well. That if you created anything, it would kinda belong to them.

Anyways, after the backlash, Amazon.com Inc. withdrew the guidelines that claimed ownership rights to video games made by employees after work hours. According to Bloomberg, “These policies were originally put in place over a decade ago when we had a lot less information and experience than we do today, and as a result, the policies were written quite broadly,” Mike Frazzini, the Amazon Game Studios boss, wrote in the email to staff.

Let me know what you guys think? Should employees retain the right of their own projects while working for another company of those it fall within the right of the employer to seize the project.

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