Even Steven โ€” skill has value
Whose it is

Three things, and two owners.

A person keeping ownership of their skill and us owning what we build are only compatible if the three things are kept apart. So here they are, apart.

The thingWhose it isWhat a withdrawal does to it
The technique, in your own hands and your own careerYours, and not for sale. We never ask to acquire it and we would not take itNothing. It is untouched, always
The recording of you workingInformation about you, so it is yours to allow and yours to withdraw. We hold it under licenceIt is deleted, raw and derived alike
What we build from it, the thing that actually runsOurs: our instrument, our work and our checkingIt comes out of service, because the licence under it is gone

Tables scroll sideways on a narrow screen.

Where your right actually comes from

Privacy law and the agreement. We would rather say so than reach for something stronger that is not there.

You will hear other people tell operators that their technique is intellectual property. It is not, and a person who believes it will make decisions on a footing that does not hold. Copyright protects expression rather than method, and a way of cutting a slope or bringing a process back into band is not an authored work.

What is real is this: the recording is information about an identifiable person. Privacy law attaches consent and withdrawal rights to that directly, and it does so in most of the places this could ever operate, because privacy law across the world has converged on the same shape. The entitlement to be paid is created by the agreement itself.

That is a narrower claim than the one we could make and it is the one we can stand behind. A right you actually have is worth more than a bigger one somebody told you about.

What we will not tell you

We do not give legal opinions, and you should not accept one from a vendor.

Whether a recording arrangement affects your employment agreement, your obligations to an employer, or your position under a collective agreement is for your own counsel or your own representative. We will not offer a view on it, and anyone selling you something who does is telling you what suits them.

What we can show you is how the thing works: what is recorded, what is not, where it is kept, who can reach it, and what happens when you say stop.