Q: This may sound silly – but I honestly don’t know the answer. I’ve worked
extremely hard on a particular investigation and now, national media wants me on
their team. Can I take copies of my research when I go?
Florida
A: If you did research as a paid employee of another company, then that research belongs to the company that paid you to do it. If you were to give it to another company you would, in effect, be taking proprietary information away from the company. You could be in real trouble, especially if the information that one company paid for shows up in a competitor’s publication. I wouldn’t do it.
Furthermore, if the place that hired you did so in part because you were going to walk in the door with information gathered on someone else’s dime, I would have reservations about the company’s ethics. If, on the other hand, they had no such expectations, they might have reservations about you.
