Ms-office - Who Owns The Copyright To Work You've Created?

I was at a sales meeting involving Microsoft products recently and heard something strange. Without dissecting Microsoft's licensing agreements myself, I'm wondering if anyone else has heard this and if it's true.

It was stated that, if you have a free or discounted copy of MS-Office that was provided or purchased through either your school or employer, the school or employer (not you) own the copyrights to all works created using it.

As an example, let's say an aspiring author named "J.K." is attending a college or working for a company that gives her a legally licensed copy of MS-Office to install on her PC. In her spare time, she writes a book about a place called Hogwarts that becomes a best-seller and earns millions in royalties. Assuming there are no other written contracts she signed with the school/employer regarding her creative work, does the fact the school or employer provided the copy of MS-Office alone give them the right to sue for the profits?

Frankly, this sounds like an urban legend designed to get people to buy MS-Office at the full retail price. Any thoughts or experience on this would be appreciated.

 

I doubt the entity that gives you a copy of MS Office owns any copyright to any works created by you.
A freebie is a freebie.
BUT, you live in the US - the leader of the litigious world. You make a significant amount of money from something someone gives you... and they want to a slice of the pie.

Also, you will most likely be given a copy of MS Office (Personal, Home, University, etc.) that may not be used commercially. Make a ton of money, and Microsoft will see you in court.

 

An easy solution if that is true is to download Open Office or another free program and work away. I don't see how they can "legally" determine the licensing of the software you used to write it.

 

If Open Office is the only suite you ever use it's great. Sadly, if you create a document using it and then attempt to open or edit it using MS-Office, loss of formatting sometimes happens. I have had this happen many times since I don't have MS-Office on all my PCs. IMO, this is one of the reasons why I think MS-Office freebie and discount programs exist - schools and businesses don't want the hassle of formatting loss (the other is obvious: Microsoft wants to get students hooked on its products).

Your point on determining exactly what license version of MS-Office was used to create a specific document is why my b***s**t detector went off when this was brought up in official training.

 

sadly, fear mongering tends to work.

the thread title reminded me of what yahoo tried to pull off when it bought out geocities ages ago.
yahoo changed the terms of service and stated that any thing and all things, pictures, words, applications, etc., uploaded to geocities became the property of yahoo. and, not surprisingly, geocities became a ghost town almost overnight. to me, that move by yahoo was utterly and morally bankrupt. but i actually knew a couple of people who applauded yahoo for at least trying. i try to keep hope alive, but it keeps getting harder and harder.