I work at a bank and I developed an in-house web application that helps keep track of past due loans and all the interaction between the bank and the customers. I was recently told by an outside consultant, who frequents many different banks, that each one of these banks would die to have a loss mitigation system like the one I built.I just read Joel's response to a similar question about copyright ownership. In his example he said that even though Joe was hired to write the code, he still owns the copyright. So, do I own the copyright to this app and can I resell it to other banks? Update 05/20/2011:Thank you all for your honest feedback on this issue. I have always understood that software written at work by an employee as belonging to the employer. I was stunned when I read scenario described by Joel, and thought I would ask your opinions. It's nice to know that I have always held the same beliefs as you... the code belongs to the employer.
Can I market an application I wrote at work?
ethics;copyright
Don't Do ItSuperficially it sounds like you wrote the app on the company's dime. Ethically, that makes it the company's property  even if legal technicalities exist to argue otherwise.What you can do is call the outside consultant's bluff: ask for a list of companies and contact names and phone numbers of those that might be interested. As long as your employment contract doesn't forbid it (and it sounds like it doesn't), you are free to re-write (from scratch, no code re-use) the app on your own time to suit other customers. So get a bunch of the potential customers together and design exactly the app that they want  which may not be the same as what you wrote - and make a small fortune in the process.And of course  I am not a lawyer, so make sure you clear all of this with someone who is!