IT OWNERSHIP
Principles, Laws and Cases
Responses to Copyright Infringement
Search Engines and Online Libraries
Free Software
Patents for Inventions in Software
Intellectual Property ?
- Value of intelligence and artistic work comes from creativity, ideas, research. skills, labor and attributes the creator provides is protected by copyright and patent law.
Challenges of New Technology
- Digital technology and the Internet make copyright infringement easier and cheaper.
- Search engines make finding material easier.
- Peer-to-peer technology makes transferring and sharing files easier.
- New tools allow us to modify graphics, video and audio files to make derivative works.
Ethical arguments about copying
- Copying or distributing a song or computer program does not decrease the use and enjoyment any other person gets from his or her copy.
- Copying can decrease the amount of money that the copyright owner earns.
Ideas from the software industries
International piracy
Banning,suing and taxing
Digital Rights Management
- Expiration dates within the software.
- Copy protection that prevents copying
- Activation or registration codes
- Court orders to shut down Internet bulletin boards and Web sites.
- Some countries do not recognize or protect intellectual property.
- Countries that have high piracy rates often do not have a significant software industry.
- Countries that have a high amount of piracy rates are exporting the pirated copies to countries with strict copyright laws
- Ban or delay technology via lawsuits
- Require that new technology include copyright protections
- Tax digital media to compensate the industry for expected losses.
- Collection of techniques that control uses of intellectual property in digital formats
- Includes hardware and software schemes using encryption
- The producer of a file has flexibility to specify what a user may do it.
Search Engines
- Caching and displaying small excerpts is fair use
- Creating and displaying thumbnail images is fair use
- Google negotiaied licensing agreements with news services to copy and display headlines, excerpts and photos.
- Trademarked search terms
Books Online
- Project Gutternberg digitizes books in the public domain
- Microsoft scanned millions of public domain books in University of California's library.
- Some court rulings favor search engines and information access; some favor content producers
- An idea advocated and supported by a large, loose-knit group of computer programmers who allow people to copy, use and modify their software.
- Free means freedom of use, not necessarily lack of cost
In favor of software patents
- Reward inventors for their creative work
- Encourage inventors to disclose their inventions so others can build upon them
- Encourage innovation
Against software patents
- Patents can stifle innovation rather than encourage it
- Cost of lawyers to research patents and risk of being sued discourage small companies from attempting to develop and market new innovations
- It is difficult to determine what is truly original and distinguish a patentable innovation from one that is not