Intellectual property?

Question

I am an independent contractor for a flight school and was in charge of a ground school program. I chose to create a collection of PowerPoint presentations for those classes. The owners never specified I had to make power points, and there was no agreement that I provide them with any material beyond sharing it with other independent contractors.

Who owns the rights to those works? If I made them inaccessible after I leave, do they have any recourse against me?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

This is not really intellectual property, unless you developed some new and innovative training program.  If you just took standard ground school practices and reduced them to Powerpoint slides, you didn't really invent anything.

Further, if you used the company's facilities (computer time, Powerpoint software license, etc.) to create these, then they have an inherent ownership interest in it.  If you make it such that they cannot access it when you leave, that is tantamount to theft so you don't want to do that.

And, you say you agreed to make it available to other independent contractors they may use, so you in effect granted them a perpetual license to your material.  They certainly could not go out and sell it, but you agreed to give them a use license it appears.

I wouldn't make a fuss over this stuff this time, but in future you will want to clearly spell out IP situations in your contract so there is no confusion.

? · Answer

As an independent contractor, you have some employment agreement or contract and you should read it carefully.

Anything that you produce while on the payroll, or using the companies equipment, is generally going to be their property.  If you made the presentations at home over a weekend, they're yours.

Anonymous · Answer

What's in your contract regarding created works while employed by the company?

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Intellectual property?

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