Amazon has withdrawn a policy that claimed ownership over any video games made by its employees after work hours.

The policy issued Amazon “a royalty free, worldwide, fully paid-up, perpetual, transferable license” to the intellectual property rights of any video game developed by its employees, regarding of whether or not they created the games in their own time.

Furthermore, the policy dictated that these games could only be sold on Amazon digital stores.

This policy was removed yesterday.

“These policies were originally put in place over a decade ago when we had a lot less information and experience than we do today, and as a result, the policies were written quite broadly,” Mike Frazzini, the Amazon Game Studios boss, wrote in an email to staff.

It is not known if this policy will be implemented retroactively.