Employment Contracts / Intellectual Property / Tendered Gag Orders / Personal Development Plans

[YellowPete]

Hi all I was having a discussion today and the issue came up about Intellectual Property Rights, Employment Contracts, Staff Personal Development Plans and the Commercial Archaeological Database as both public and private Ownership within the development Sector.

I bring this subject up in the right place to start the debate rolling effectivly.

However this is something which is only something that will work, through both debate and outside forces.


What brings all these issues under the same heading?

If the Intellectual rights signed away through current employment contract signatories, then we are giving away the commercial viability and ownership of our personal development plans.

If archaeology needs to build into the industry, a requirement to be innovative and creative about the stories and intellectual engagement required to provide a fruitful product, then we must consider that not only must we take charge of our intellectual and skills development, but we must also have some form of considered monetry stakeholding value which can provide incentives outside of the traditional prestige and satisfaction.

If the profession is to develop in a way which truely opens the door to a solid foundation for a chartering basis alongside the public / private ownership challenges then we must start down this line to provide a solid integrated approach. These issues face us now in the industry but will, non the less develop rapidly within the realm of financial and legislative experience and practice.


Employment contract will need to evolve to provide for commercial data collection to remain within the clients' intellectual and data ownership, but the contextualised and applied experience and useful information that is built into the database as a meaningful product, must reside outside of the blanket term of intellectual property.

If anything is to be recognised at all then we as recorders of objective observations and subjective interpretations then we must consider whom are we investing in, when we spend years of our lives gleaning and developing our skills and knowledge base for a carte blanche egalitarian non-ownership (or non-responsibility/ non-liability).

These are not going to be sufficient for the future of the industry in an form of development, workplace, or intended interested party, or recipient of such material.


If we do intend to leave these issues unresolved, then we must face a possible paradoxical situation whereby commercialisation of information and data, will require the gaging orders on material cultural evidence, on any given site, which which will lead to a non-public engagement with our heritage as a natural response to over exposure to externalities without any monetry return built into them.

However, we must not allow ourselves to become victims to economic needs, situations and their potential exploitation, but rather as leading stakeholder responses to commercial requirements.


I cannot stress deeply enough how important this issue will come to be and how important that this issue be taken seriously, jointly by the CBA, Employers, the IFA and Prospect (as a Union body).

I leave this open for now, but any real dialogue will enforce a group membership ruling.

I alpologise in advance.

Enjoy

Mike
:face-smart: or 8D + :face-rain: = xx(

[vulpes]

Come back Unitof1 all is forgiven.

[Oxbeast]

Mike, I don't know if you're going to stimulate much of a debate when your posts are so difficult to read. It would be easier if they were written in the language that people actually speak, rather than in management jargonese.

Am I right in thinking that your point is that the system whereby the copyright is retained by the employer and the client prevents personal development plans? It doesn't prevent mine, but I don't want to reproduce copyright information. It is completely normal for employers to retain copyright for information produced on work time, including professions much more professional that archaeology.

[YellowPete]

sorry

the point orbits around the concept of time and money in relation to you pay for what you get.

say an employer wins a contract and yet finds that the contract has been under estimated, then the work carried out is of a relative standard, but a standard none the less (as long as the site remains integratl and intact.

also the notion realtes to what kind of work is conducted where

say an employer whom wishes to turn archaeology into a mass production factory line then the intellectual property rights may perdominantly remain within the relm of post ex whereas if the employer moves towARDS THE CONCEPT OF digger inclusion into the writing up process and the primary record is ellivated then the intellectual property rights would be in the hands of the diggers.

Intellectual property rights has been a grey area in academia for a long time where it is beleived if you write something at university then the university retains the copyright.

this is not so, they may hold distribution rights but not the intellectual property itself as the students are in fact paying to supply the material as opposed to being paid to accumulate the material.

Your right though in that there is not really alot of movement in this.

but there is if you include the notion of personal development plans, whereby an employer invests in staff devlopment, or it does not.

if the ifa places a premium upon those with a broader knowledge base then it pays to be invested in rather than providing meat for the post ex grinder.

it may come to be that people will be placed in the situation whereby they are employed on the basis of funding something they do not have any or have a chance of any involvement in.

thus intellectual property rights become a premium edge on the form of employee rights you hold.

if you have time then you can go to town and develkop personal skills and limits, but on a cut throat budget, realistically there is nothing but stripped down data retreival.

:face-huh:

does that help

[RedEarth]

Personally, I am even more confused following that post...

Regarding 'intellectual property rights' I'm still not sure what you are asking - read your contract.

[YellowPete]

maybe next time