[joshvc]

There's plenty of legal precedent for this kind of thing in Non-Compete and Non-Disclosure laws, especially in creative industries. I don't have a concrete example (sorry), but I know that places like Disney have them. A Disney employee can't sit around thinking up scripts and selling them on his own- Disney will claim that they own whatever creative output he has while working for them.

The question here is how common it is in twinn's industry and whether it seems ethical and worth putting up with. For a programmer to be barred from freelancing, consulting, or side-projects AT ALL is pretty extreme. But it's probably easier for his company to leave that in place instead of trying to define what is or is not competing with their product line.

[danssig]

Of course companies have Non-Compete/Non-Disclosure laws. There is no law (afaik) that says a company can't try to make you think they have more rights than they do. Have you ever heard of anyone trying to enforce one? The only one I've ever heard of was that high up executive who recently moved between two competing companies (think Oracle was one of the parties and maybe HP) and that was settled between the companies out of court. So I still no of no cases where it has been tested in court and was help up. Holding up such laws would be an insane precedent.

Look at it this way: when you sign these agreements are you on equal footing? If every company has them then you have no choice to but sign if you want to work. So you're not freely giving up your rights, you're basically being forced to.