February 23rd, 2021
23 Feb 2021 · page 1049 of 1306
Stop wielding the false maid, Vee, it's rude.
Sticking to just one update a week on Tuesdays for a little while as I get my head together, getting there!
Cast: Doris The False Maid, Lei Feng, Tim Chiang, Verity Cunningham
Comments (38)
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Never let facts get in the way of a good rant!
Which is why it’s always important to agree on intellectual property ownership, publication and future commercialisation at the start of any collaboration.
Especially when working with family! Can't let blood bonds delude you into thinking these aren't important things to have in writing
Panel 5: Verity "Nanami" Cunningham.
When your only major crime is intellectual property theft of course you're scared of the families attempted murderer.
If Lei created those devices while she was employed by Tim then he will own the intellectual property anyway.
Ah, that depends on their contract.
(contract? which contract?)
Lei may have produced items and leased their use to Tim, but it is not necessarily a passation of intellectual property.
Although nowadays, the rule is indeed that the second you put a foot in a lab, private or academic, everything you produce is owned by the lab.
If someone's paying you to make something, it's only fair that they own it. But looking back at Vanishing Act, Sid doesn't make it clear if Lei is employed as only an assistant or also as a creator of props. If the latter isn't part of her job description, then Tim can't claim any ownership.
But as you say, they probably didn't bother with a contract.
The guy who came up with the idea for intermittent windshield had to sue Ford when they claimed the patent because he was a Ford Engineer. The court ruled that it was not in the area he worked in and he did the work on his own time {and his own car}.
He got the patent assigned to him.
The guy who invent quick-release socket sets was a salesman {possibly a manager?} in Sears' hardware department.
Sears tried to grab that patent - the court ruling was that he was not an engineer nor in R&D so Sears had no claim on what he invented.
Both of those examples are of people who built something on their own time while employed elsewhere.
If--which we don't know--Lei was employed by Tim explicitly to build gadgets, then it would be a different situation. It would be being hired to develop an intermittent windshield wiper or quick-release socket set, and successfully doing so while on the clock. There's no way you'd get awarded the patent in that case unless your contract explicitly stipulated you owned it.
As noted, they probably don't have any such contract, and there's no evidence something like this could even BE patented, not to mention clearly neither of them actually filed for it. Which is to say that it's not a legal dispute, it's just a disagreement between magicians who like to keep their secrets and get angry if someone else uses them.
Oh, it probably could be patented; any truly novel device or invention {except perpetual motion machines} is, in theory, patentable.
I saw Vincent Price's "The Mad Magician." It didn't end well for... well... almost anybody!
I think Tim is more worried that his thief of intellectual property will lead to his murder.
Lei's face in the final panel is just. exquisite
as is verity's
god i cant wait for them to kiss
Glad you like it, because I think we're going to be seeing it a lot.
Verity wondering where she left that bucket of popcorn....
I have an assistant.
I have an assistant who got upset about me acting like her technology is magic.
I have an assistant who got so upset about me acting like her technology is magic, she tried to blow up the anchor, destroy magic, attempted murder, accidentally summoned Pride (which caused a lot of trouble) and almost killed the princess.
I am just going to keep acting like her technology is magic. That is a safe and logical desicion.
Its good I swallowed my yogurt while reading this, that'd be an odd mess to have on a laptop keyboard.
I like the way you think. I don't like the conclusions you draw.
But can she dual wield false maids?
I'm sure it's easier than falsely wielding dual maids.
I'm... actually not so sure about that. Depending on the definition of falsely wielding, that sounds much easier.
I'm fairly certain you've been doing this the entire comic, but I just noticed your use of white motion lines. It's incredibly well done! I especially like the fifth panel. Nothing is actually moving, but the white line helps convey Lei's absolute misery. It's great!
high up on the not-so-short list of people I've wronged
"You're using my work, uncredited!"
Lei's...not so great at apologizing, is she?
Too busy trying to invent new ways to apologize in ways that aren't apologizing.
She's still working on this whole "good person" thing.
She's not what I'd call an A student...
Not a reason to use them in her stead, without her consent.
Well, unless you are the named tutor or next-of-kin and thus entitled to manage these ideas.
Sorry Lei. You're just one person, so anyone can steal your work without consequences. If you didn't want anyone stealing your design you should try being a big corporation.
"so now you got to help me smuggle my boss to the rich's area"
I'd forgotten about the whole attempted murder thing until now, haha.
...Still one of the more well-adjusted characters, though.
You know what question needs to be asked?
"Lei Feng, are you proud for having been sent to prison?"
OK, I realize that was just Verity being Verity, but that strikes a nerve. People enjoy things, only to discover something later that ruins it. Like not long ago, JK Rowling revealed herself to be a transphobic bigot. Now a lot of us just can't with Harry Potter anymore. Rurouni Kenshin was a classic to the anime/manga crowd, but a lot of folks were turned against it when the creator, Nobuhiro Watsuki, was busted with child pornography a while back. These massive perspective shifts just happen. They get sprung on us suddenly, and we simply can't like something anymore no matter how much we loved it before.
I feel Lei here. She loved the act until it reopened that old wound about Tim not respecting her work. That's not something she can just let pass.
I unironically love Lei for responding to "you should be in prison for attempted murder" with "don't change the subject!" I need half that much confidence.
Right in the pride again huh?
I love Verity. We love a smug lesbian.
I’ve just now noticed the irony of the fact that Lei works for Verity now considering their relationship in “disappearing act”