NDAs without a hard cutoff, maybe a year or two in the future, can get bent.
Especially for artists. Holy shit, do artists get screwed by NDAs. Some people’s portfolios are fucking sparse despite years of doing art five days a week for years and years. If the business just kills the project - tough shit, it’s a secret forever.
To the point we’re still seeing people hesitant to talk about failed games from thirty years ago, even though the company is dead, and the company that bought their corpse is also dead.
There’s a non-zero chance that NDAs could use to shield bad people and/or bad companies from criticism, but often they’re just used to stop spreading info to competitors, stop spoiling stuff, etc. Not crediting someone is usually scumbaggery, but in case of VTubers, they usually get doxxed within a week, especially big names and those that used to be big previously.
I had a company give me an NDA that essentially said I couldn’t work anywhere on the east coast after I quit because the had clients all over and there was a radius around each where I wasn’t allowed to work (I was young and desperate for a job so I didn’t pay enough attention to what I had signed). After I got a new job the old place came knocking. The new company’s lawyer laughed the old company out of the room when they presented it.
NDAs without a hard cutoff, maybe a year or two in the future, can get bent.
Especially for artists. Holy shit, do artists get screwed by NDAs. Some people’s portfolios are fucking sparse despite years of doing art five days a week for years and years. If the business just kills the project - tough shit, it’s a secret forever.
To the point we’re still seeing people hesitant to talk about failed games from thirty years ago, even though the company is dead, and the company that bought their corpse is also dead.
There’s a non-zero chance that NDAs could use to shield bad people and/or bad companies from criticism, but often they’re just used to stop spreading info to competitors, stop spoiling stuff, etc. Not crediting someone is usually scumbaggery, but in case of VTubers, they usually get doxxed within a week, especially big names and those that used to be big previously.
An even bigger issue IMHO are NCAs.
NCAs are “slavery but with more steps” territory. You can’t quit because we own your degree now.
I had a company give me an NDA that essentially said I couldn’t work anywhere on the east coast after I quit because the had clients all over and there was a radius around each where I wasn’t allowed to work (I was young and desperate for a job so I didn’t pay enough attention to what I had signed). After I got a new job the old place came knocking. The new company’s lawyer laughed the old company out of the room when they presented it.
We need more doctrine based on argumentum ad fuuuck offff.