1. TTS1133 : INTERNET ETHICS AND CYBER LAW
CHAPTER FIVE
Intellectual Property

2. CONTENT Intellectual Property
Intellectual property and changing technology
What is intellectual property
Issues: competitive intelligence
Cybersquatting
Problems from new technology
Copyright law
Copyright – a case example
The fair use policy
Copying music, movies, software and books
From cd / floppies to the web

3. CONTENT (Cont..) The napster case Software piracy
Ethical argument about copying
Solutions
Technology, market and law
Restrictions and bans on technology
The future of copyright
Free software – issues on an open source
Issues for software developers
Copyright or patent

4. What is Intellectual Property?
Term used to describe works of the mind, such as art, books, films, formula, invention, music and process that are distinct and that are ‘owned’ or created by single entity.
Copyright law
Protects authored works
Patent laws
Protect inventions
Trade secret laws
Help safeguard information critical to an organization’s success
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

5. COPYRIGHTS
In the United States, the basis of copyright protection is presented in the U.S Constitution.
The body of legislation supporting constitutional provisions laws that elaborate on or expand the constitutional protections.
Copyrights are designed to protect the expression of ideas.
Purpose: to promote distribution of the work, therefore, the work must be distributed.
Copyright applied to a creative work: story, photograph, and song and pencil sketch.
The right to copy an expression of an idea is protected by copyright.
Copyright give the owner the exclusive right to make copies off the expression and sell them to the public.
That is, only the author can sell copies of the author’s book.
Prepared By: Razif Razali

6. Definition of Intellectual Property
Only the originator of the expression is entitled to copyright.
If an expression has no determinable originator, the copyright cannot be granted.
The copyright does not cover the idea being expressed.
Copyright last for only a limited period of time.
The copyrighted expression must also be in tangible medium.
A story or art work must be written, printed, recorded, and stored in disk or fixed on some other way.
Certain works are considered to be in the public domain, owned by the public, by no one in particular.
Example: the song “Happy birthday to you”, “nasi goreng’ recipe.
Prepared By: Razif Razali

7. Originality of Works
The work being copyrighted must be original to the author.
A work can be copyrighted even if it contains some public domain materials, as long as there is some originality.
The author does not even have to identify what is public and what is original.
Example:
A music historian could copyright a collection of folksongs even if some are in the public domain.
A dictionary can be copyrighted and the author could not claim to own the word.
Prepared By: Razif Razali

8. Copyright for Computer Software
Can a computer program be copyrighted? YES…
Computer program can be copyrighted (1976 copyright law emended in 1980 to include an explicit definition of computer software).
However, copyright protection may not be especially desirable from a protection
Prepared By: Razif Razali

9. Copyright for Digital Objects
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) of clarified some issues of digital objects (such as music files, graphic, images, data in a database, and also computer program), but it left other unclear.
Among provision of the DCMA are these:
Digital objects can be subject to copyright.
It is a crime to circumvent or disable antipiracy functionality built into an object.
It is a crime to manufacture, sell, or distribute devices that disable antipiracy functionality or that copy digital object.

10. PATENTS
Protect invention, tangible objects or ways to make them not works of the mind.
Intended to apply to the result of science, technology and engineering.
A patent can protect a “new and useful process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter.
A patent is designed to protect the device or process for carrying out an idea, not the idea itself.
Example:
If two composers happen to compose the same song independently at different times, copyright law would allow both of them to have copyright.
If two investor devices the same invention, the patent goes to the person who invented it first, regardless of who first filed the patent.
Prepared By: Razif Razali

11. Procedure of registering a Patent
The inventor must convince the U.S Patent and Trademark Office that the invention deserves the patent.
A patent attorney will research the patent already issued for similar invention.
The patent owner uses the patented invention by producing products or by licensing others to produce them.
Patent objects sometimes marked with a patent number to warn others that the technology is patented.
Prepared By: Razif Razali

12. TRADE SECRETS
Is unlike a patent or copyright in that it must be keep a secret.
The information has value only as a secret, and an infringer is one who divulges the secret.
Once divulged, the information usually cannot be made secret again
Prepared By: Razif Razali

13. Characteristics of Trade Secrets
Trade secret is information that gives one company a competitive edge over others.
Example: The formula of soft drinks, mailing list of customers or information about a product due to be announced in a few months.
The distinguishing characteristic of a trade secret is that it must always be kept secret.
The owner must take precautions to protect the secret such as storing safely, encrypting it in computer file, or making employees sign a statement that they will not disclose the secret.
If someone obtains a trade secret improperly and profits from it, the owner can recover profits, damages, lost revenues and legal costs.
Prepared By: Razif Razali

14. Figure: Comparing Copyrights, Patent and Trade Secret
Prepared By: Razif Razali

15. Key Intellectual Property Issues
Issues that apply to intellectual property and information technology
Plagiarism
Reverse engineering
Open source code
Competitive intelligence
Cybersquatting
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

16. Plagiarism
Theft and passing off of someone’s ideas or words as one’s own
Many students
Do not understand what constitutes plagiarism
Believe that all electronic content is in the public domain
Plagiarism detection systems
Check submitted material against databases of electronic content
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

17. Plagiarism (continued)
Steps to combat student plagiarism
Help students understand what constitutes plagiarism
Show students how to document Web pages
Schedule major writing assignments in portions
Tell students that you know about Internet paper mills
Educate students about plagiarism detection services
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

18. Partial List of Plagiarism Detection Services and Software
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

19. Reverse Engineering Process of taking something apart in order to
Understand it
Build a copy of it
Improve it
Applied to computer
Hardware
Software
Convert a program code to a higher level design
Convert an application that ran on one vendor’s database to run on another’s
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

20. Reverse Engineering (continued)
Compiler
Language translator
Converts computer program statements expressed in a source language to machine language
Software manufacturer
Provides software in machine language form
Decompiler
Reads machine language
Produces source code
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

21. Reverse Engineering (continued)
Courts have ruled in favor of using reverse engineering
To enable interoperability
Software license agreements forbid reverse engineering
Semiconductor Chip Protection Act (SCPA)
Established a new type of intellectual property protection for mask works
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

22. Open Source Code
Program source code made available for use or modification
As users or other developers see fit
Basic premise
Software improves
Can be adapted to meet new needs
Bugs rapidly identified and fixed
High reliability
GNU General Public License (GPL) was a precursor to the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

23. Competitive Intelligence
Gathering of legally obtainable information
To help a company gain an advantage over rivals
Often integrated into a company’s strategic plans and decision making
Not industrial espionage
Nearly 25 colleges and universities offer courses or programs
Without proper management safeguards it can cross over to industrial espionage
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

24. A Manager’s Checklist for Running an Ethical Competitive Intelligence Operation
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

25. Cybersquatting
Trademark is anything that enables a consumer to differentiate one company’s products from another’s
May be
Logo
Package design
Phrase
Sound
Word
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

26. Cybersquatting (continued)
Trademark law
Trademark’s owner has the right to prevent others from using the same mark
Or confusingly similar mark
Cybersquatters
Registered domain names for famous trademarks or company names
Hope the trademark’s owner would buy the domain name
For a large sum of money
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

27. Cybersquatting (continued)
To curb cybersquatting
Register all possible domain names
.org
.com
.info
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
Current trademark holders are given time to assert their rights in the new top-level domains before registrations are opened to the general public
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

28. Open Source vs. Proprietary Software
"Free software" (economic definition) means you don't have to pay for it
"Free software" (GNU definition):
freedom to run the program, for any purpose
freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (open source)
freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits

29. The GNU Public License: Copyleft (www.gnu.org)
Copyleft: a general method for making a program free software and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well."
Ethical question: Should you make available to other software engineers (even those who work for other companies) reusable software of your own making?
Ethical question: does the proprietary software business model allow the patching of O.S. security exploits as well as the open source model?

30. NAPSTER What did Napster allow its users to do?
Make MP3 files stored on individual computer hard drives available for copying by other Napster users
Search for MP3 music files stored on other users’ computers
Transfer exact copies of the contents of other users’ MP3 files from one computer to another via the internet

31. NAPSTER

32. NAPSTER CASE
Napster was engaged in the commercial recording, distribution and sale of copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings.
A&M alleges that Napster, Inc. is a contributing and explicit copyright infringer.
By July 2000, the courts prevented Napster "from engaging in, or facilitating others in copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting, or distributing copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings, without express permission of the rights owner.
Napster had to post a bond for damages at $5 million.

33. Summary Intellectual property is protected by
Copyrights
Patents
Trade secrets
Plagiarism is stealing and passing off the ideas and words of another as one’s own
Reverse engineering
Process of breaking something down
In order to understand, build copy, or improve it
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition

34. Summary (continued) Open source code Competitive intelligence
Made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit
Competitive intelligence
Not industrial espionage
Uses legal means and public information
Cybersquatting
Registration of a domain name by an unaffiliated party
Ethics in Information Technology, Second Edition