The freedom to publish personal work

Your employer should not own your weekends.

Right to Build protects the freedom to create, publish, sell, and be known for independent work made off-hours, with your own tools, without company secrets.

1

Sign the petition

Add your name to the public count.

2

Share #RightToBuild

Make the issue easy to repeat.

3

Contact lawmakers

Ask for clear worker innovation rights.

4

Check your state

See what protections already exist.

The problem

Why this matters

The next useful product might already exist after hours.

Builders notice problems and make things before the market knows what to ask for: apps, games, automations, tools, open-source projects, and small businesses.

Too often, broad policies make people afraid to publish anything under their own name. The result is quieter than a lawsuit: useful work never ships.

Right to Build exists because workers should not need permission to create unrelated work outside the job.

No trade secrets.
No company systems.
No paid work time.
No blanket ownership of a person's future ideas.

Sign the petition

Put your name behind the right to build.

Add your name to show support for laws that protect independent work built off-hours, with personal resources, without company secrets.

Your signature is recorded in the Right to Build petition database.

What counts

What we protect

Independent work should be easy to recognize.

This should be yours

  • Apps built outside work
  • Software tools and games
  • Open-source contributions
  • Creative projects and small businesses
  • Public portfolios and personal credit

This stays protected

  • Trade-secret theft
  • Use of confidential information
  • Use of company code or private customer data
  • Work assigned by the employer
  • Misrepresenting yourself as speaking for the company

The principle

Companies deserve protection from theft. Workers deserve protection from overreach.

Right to Build is not anti-company. It is a practical line between paid work and personal creation: protect trade secrets, customer data, assigned work, and real conflicts, while ending vague policies that make permission the default for independent building.

The proposal

Guardrails, not gag orders

A fair policy should be clear before someone builds.

Read Proposal

Safe harbor

Off-hours work made with personal resources and no company secrets should start as yours.

Define conflicts clearly

A company should not be able to veto independent work with vague claims about future markets or broad industry overlap.

No forced anonymity

Builders should not have to hide behind shell accounts, aliases, or unsigned work to avoid employer scrutiny.

Stop retaliation

Workers should not be punished for building lawful independent projects that stay outside company time, systems, and secrets.

Take action

Ask lawmakers to protect independent builders before useful work disappears.

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