Intellectual Property (Unit III) 1

 1996, major conference in Geneva to devise a comprehensive international copyright treaty  Record companies, book and magazine publishers, movie studios, software vendors and other content creators wanted stronger owner rights 2

 Concluded copyright owners should have control of copies of their digital works  Proposed much of the cost of policing intellectual property protection be with online service providers who are liable for violations of their users 3

Copyright maximalists believe there should be tight control of intellectual property through law and technology Copyright minimalists oppose intellectual property laws that oppose the flow of information in cyberspace. Feel it is a futile effort. Envision a time when authors give away their books and make money only from speaking engagements or musicians give away music and make money from merchandise sold at concerts 4

 Ownership of property implies that the owner has certain rights and liabilities with respect to the property (rights to use, manage, possess, exclude, and derive income)  Intellectual property – objects such as musical compositions, poems, novels, inventions, etc. that someone can own 5

Gives authors exclusive rights in their works, especially to make copies Lasts for author’s lifetime +70 years To be eligible – all work must be original Can be quoted and displayed for limited purposes such as criticism, research, classroom instruction and news reporting Fair use allows several pages of a book to be reproduced by a teacher for students 6

 Protects physical objects like machines and inventions for a period of 20 years from the filing date  Must be a novel idea and not known to others before the patent is awarded  Software was originally considered ineligible until the Diamond vs. Diehr case 7

Word, phrase or symbol that identifies a product Acquired when someone is the first to use or registers it with the U.S. Patent Office Infringement – occurs when the trademark is used by someone else in connection with the sale of goods or services Blurring – using a trademark with dissimilar products Tarnishment – when trademark is used in a negative way 8

 “As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property”  In other words – if intellectual labor is expended the reward should be ownership in the fruits of the labor  Many feel this moral work theory is archaic but the US court decisions seem to follow it 9

 Property rights are essential for proper personal expression.  Property enables an individual to put his will into a thing  Property is an expression of one’s personality 10

The greatest good for the greatest number Security in possession, use and control are necessary Creators are reluctant to produce and distrube socially valuable works unless they have ownership or exclusive rights to make copies of their works Magnitude of upfront cost to create is so high that the sales must be much more than the reproduction cost (cost to reproduce a CD) 11

Digital Millennium Copyright Act – anticircumventation provision which criminalizes the use of technologies that circumvent protection systems Intermediary liability – liability of 3 rd parties for copyright infringement of others ISPs must be willing to terminate repeat copyright offenders Make use of copyrighted materials for fair use difficult 12

Music and movies are vulnerable because of the digital format and in great demand by young people MP3 format became popular Performers can publish and distribute without the aid of recording companies Low-cost distribution Downside is potential for piracy (Napster, P2P, KaZaA ) 13

DeCSS software allows the ability to circumvent the DVD encryption protection This made it illegal for anyone to provide technology that is intended to circumvent access controls Movies can be played on a Mac or Windows operating system Judge ruled in favor of movie industry to keep the protection 14

Felt to provide better software because multiple people working on it Ex. Apache Web Server, MySQL database, Linux operating system, Open Office, GIMP Different from freeware like Adobe Reader Copyleft License – allows a user to redistribute open source code with modifications or enhancements but uonly under the same license in which the user received the code. 15

In the 1990s Patent and Trade Office began granting patents for business methods and treating them as process patents Priceline vs Microsoft Expedia (which offered Hotel Price Matcher) A Priceline victory would have created a monopoly Read about it online MercExchange vs eBay’s “Buy it Now” 16

 Originally distributed by Network Solutions on a first-come / first-serve basis  Now ICANN  There are Youtube videos on Cybersquatting  Cybersquatters ◦ typically register a certain domain name to resell them to organizations ◦ Register domain names in bad faith 17

 Gripes or critics  Register to protests an organization  Examples: ◦ ◦ ◦ vs. the jews-for-jesus sued and won because the other was an opposite information site 18

 Hyperlink – refers to having highlighted text that points to other pages at the click of a mouse.  Are you allowed to link to anyone’s page?  Link to home page or drilled down in? ◦ Can bypass opening pages ◦ Ticketmaster vs. Microsoft 19

Metatags are invisible codes incorporated into HTML code that represent a brief description or words of the web page’s contents. Search engines use these. Example: Playboy vs. Terri Wells – in her web page used the key words Playboy and Playmate because she once was one What if I use the key words Pittsburgh Steelers in my web site? Is there anything wrong with it? Look at Facebook pages. 20