Intellectual Property in the networked world

Overview  Copyright and copyleft  Patents  Licensing  Open Source Software

Copyright  “...is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other, related rights.” – Wikipedia  Is applicable to the expression of an idea, not the idea itself  Originally created to be applied to text, like books, articles, etc.

Copyright  Can be shared  Transferable / licensable  Usually inheritable  Usually authors life +[50|70|n] years  – after which the work enter the Public Domain

Copyright  Turnitin.com  Essays are submitted and checked against the database of existing essays. Essays submitted are added to the database  It is argued this does not meet the “fair use” copyright standards:  – The company copies the entire paper, not just a  portion  – Students' work is often original, interpretive and creative rather than just a compilation of established facts  – Turnitin is a commercial enterprise

Copyright Fair use/Fair dealing  Some copying allowed, as defined by fair use (U.S.) / fair dealing (Most Commonwealth)  Depends on country; sometime explicit  through legislation, sometimes established through the courts

A Bit of History  The first U.S. copyright law, passed in 1790, covered books, maps, and charts. It protected them for 14 years. Congress later extended the law to cover photography, sound recordings, and movies.  The definition of an unauthorized copy in the Copyright Act of 1909 specified that it had to be in a form that could be seen and read visually.  In 1976 and 1980, Congress revised copyright law to cover software. “Literary works” protected by copyright include computer databases that exhibit creativity or originality and computer programs that exhibit “authorship,” that is, contain original expression of ideas.

A Bit of History  Recognizing that technology was changing rapidly, the revised law specifies that copyright applies to appropriate literary works “regardless of the nature of the material objects... in which they are embodied.”  A copy could be in violation of a copyright if the original can be “perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated by or from the copy, directly or indirectly.”

The Fair Use Doctrine  Fair uses do not require the permission of the copyright holder. The notion of fair use (for literary and artistic works) grew from judicial decisions. In 1976, U.S. copyright law explicitly included it. It applies to software also.  It lists four factors to consider in determining whether a particular use is a “fair use”: 1. The purpose and nature of the use, including whether it is for commercial purposes or nonprofit educational purposes. (Commercial use is less likely to be fair use.) 2. The nature of the copyrighted work. (Use of creative work, such as a novel, is less likely than use of factual work to be fair use.) 3. The amount and significance of the portion used. 4. The effect of the use on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. (Uses that reduce sales of the original work are less likely to be considered fair.) No single factor alone determines whether a particular use is a fair use, but the last one generally gets more weight than the others

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. This fundamental distinction between intellectual property and physical property is a key reason why copying is ethical in far more circumstances than taking physical property  When people widely copy intellectual property without permission, they diminish the value of the work as an asset to the owner. That is why a lot of copying is wrong.  Supporters of unauthorized file-sharing services and people who advocate loose restrictions on copying intellectual property argue that permitting copying for, say, trying out a song or computer program before buying it benefits the copyright owner because it encourages sales.

Intellectual Property and Changing Technology (cont.) Challenges of New Technology:  Digital technology and the internet has made copyright  infringement easier and cheaper  New compression technologies have made copying  large files (e.g. graphics, video and audio files) feasible  New tools allow us to modify graphics, video and audio  files to make derivative works  Scanners allow us to change the media of a copyrighted  work, converting printed text, photos, and artwork to  electronic form

P2P and how does it work  KAzaa, torrents, etc  Different from client-server architecture  All nodes in a network are treated the same; no centralized control  All make some of their resources available to others  Search for contents is done via a distributed hash table

P2P and how does it work  International Piracy:  Some countries do not recognize or protect intellectual property  Countries that have high piracy rates often do not have a significant software industry  Many countries that have a high amount of piracy are exporting the pirated copies to countries with strict copyright laws  Economic sanctions often penalize legitimate businesses, not those they seek to target

Discussion Question  What do you think the impact would be on creative industries, such as music, movies and fiction novels, if copyright laws did not protect their intellectual property?

Copyleft  Copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works such as computer software, documents, music and art [wikipedia]  Anybody can use the artifact as long as they respect the license and include it  Important difference with just making it public for anybody to use: prevents potential “uncooperative” people from making it into proprietary software

Patents  “...a right granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” - Wikipedia  Intended to promote innovation through disclosure  Evaluation: should be novel, non obvious to expert, etc.  work a bit differently from copyrights, but you can think of them as copyrights for inventions  Unlike copyrights, patents protect the idea or design of the invention, rather than any tangible form of the invention, and so patenting something is a much trickier procedure than copyrighting something.

Patents  Negative right: excludes others from producing, using, selling, importing, etc.  Duration: usually years  Licensable, assignable, transferable

What is Patentable?  Originally physical devices that could be manufactured  Some countries (U.S. & others) now allow business processes, mathematical processes, algorithms and software, etc.

Search Engines and Online Libraries  Search Engines  – Caching and displaying small excerpts is fair use  – Creating and displaying thumbnail images is fair use  – Court ordered Google to remove links to pages that infringe copyright; Google is appealing

Assignment  Read and present papers “Get to Know Google… Because They Know You” And “Trouble clicks”