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Lecture 7

Uploaded by

Mohsin Rasheed
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© © All Rights Reserved
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CSC410 -

Professional
Practices in IT
Instructor Name : Sidra Nasir
Today Topics
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Protecting intellectual property
• Fair Use
Chapter 4:
Intellectual Property
Information Technology Changing
Intellectual Property Landscape
• Value of intellectual properties much greater than
value of media
– Creating first copy is costly
– Duplicates cost almost nothing
• Illegal copying pervasive
– Internet allows copies to spread quickly and widely
• In light of advances in information technology, how
should we treat intellectual property?
Reproduced by permission of
Electronic Frontier Foundation via
Creative Commons Attribution
License 3.0. Go to www.eff.org/
copyright for redistribution
information. To access the original
work, go to w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/?
f=music-to-our-ears.html
Intellectual Property Rights
What Is Intellectual Property?
• Intellectual property: any unique product of the
human intellect that has commercial value
– Books, songs, movies
– Paintings, drawings
– Inventions, chemical formulas, computer programs
• Intellectual property ≠ physical manifestation
• Does right to own property extend to intellectual
property?
Property Rights
• Locke: The Second Treatise of Government
• People have a right…
– to property in their own person
– to their own labor
– to things which they remove from Nature through
their labor
• As long as…
– nobody claims more property than they can use
– after someone removes something from common
state, there is plenty left over
Locke’s Notion of Property Rights
Expanding the Argument to
Intellectual Property
• Writing a play akin to making a belt buckle
• Belt buckle
– Mine ore
– Smelt it down
– Cast it
• Writing a play
– “Mine” words from English language
– “Smelt” them into prose
– “Cast” them into a complete play
Analogy Is Imperfect
Analogy Is Imperfect
• If Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare
simultaneously write down Hamlet, who owns it?
• If Ben “steals” the play from Will, both have it
• These paradoxes weaken the argument for a natural
right to intellectual property
Benefits of Intellectual Property
Protection
• Some people are altruistic; some are not
• Allure of wealth can be an incentive for speculative
work
• Authors of U.S. Constitution recognized benefits to
limited intellectual property protection
Limits to Intellectual Property
Protection
• Giving creators rights to their inventions stimulates
creativity
• Society benefits most when inventions in public
domain
• Congress has struck compromise by giving authors
and inventors rights for a limited time
Prices Fall When Works Become
Public Domain
Protecting Intellectual Property
Trade Secret
• Confidential piece of intellectual property that gives
company a competitive advantage
• Never expires
• Not appropriate for all intellectual properties
• Reverse engineering allowed
• May be compromised when employees leave firm
Trademark, Service Mark
• Trademark: Identifies goods
• Service mark: Identifies services
• Company can establish a “brand name”
• Does not expire
• If brand name becomes common noun, trademark
may be lost
• Companies advertise to protect their trademarks
• Companies also protect trademarks by contacting
those who misuse them
Patent

• A public document that provides detailed description


of invention
• Provides owner with exclusive right to the invention
• Owner can prevent others from making, using, or
selling invention for 20 years
Copyright
• Provides owner of an original work five rights
– Reproduction
– Distribution
– Public display
– Public performance
– Production of derivative works
• Copyright-related industries represent 6% of U.S.
gross domestic product (>$900 billion/yr)
• Copyright protection has expanded greatly since
1790
Key Court Cases and Legislation
• Gershwin Publishing v. Columbia Artists
• Basic Books v. Kinko’s Graphics
• Davey Jones Locker
• No Electronic Theft Act
Copyright Creep
Copyright Creep
• Since 1790, protection for books extended from 28
years to 95 years or more
• Some say latest extension done to prevent Disney
characters from becoming public domain
• Group of petitioners challenged the Copyright Term
Extension Act of 1998, arguing Congress exceeded
Constitutional power
• U.S. Supreme Court ruling
– CTEA does not create perpetual copyrights
– CTEA is constitutional
Fair Use
Fair Use Concept
• Sometimes legal to reproduce a copyrighted work
without permission
• Courts consider four factors
– Purpose and character of use
– Nature of work
– Amount of work being copied
– Affect on market for work
Sony v. Universal City Studios
• Sony introduced Betamax VCR (1975)
• People started time shifting TV shows
• Movie studios sued Sony for copyright infringements
• U.S. Supreme Court ruled (5-4) that time shifting is
fair use
Time Shifting
Digital Recording Technology
• Copying from vinyl records to cassette tapes
introduced hiss and distortions
• Introduction of compact disc a boon for music
industry
– Cheaper to produce than vinyl records
– Higher quality
– Higher price ⇒ higher profits
• BUT it’s possible to make a perfect copy of a CD
Audio Home Recording Act of
1992
• Protects rights of consumers to make copies of
analog or digital recordings for personal,
noncommercial use
– Backup copy
– Give to family member
 Digital audio recorders must incorporate Serial
Copyright Management System (SCMS), so
consumers can’t make a copy of a copy
RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia
• MP3 compression allowed songs to be stored in 10%
of the space, with little degradation
• Diamond introduced Rio MP3 player (1998)
• People started space shifting their music
• RIAA started legal action against Diamond for
violation of the Audio Home Recording Act
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, affirmed that
space shifting is consistent with copyright law
Space Shifting
Kelly v. Arriba Soft
• Kelly: Photographer maintained Web site with
copyrighted photos
• Arriba Soft: Created search engine that returned
thumbnail images
• Kelly sued Arriba Soft for copyright infringement
• U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit, affirmed that it
was fair use
Google Books
• Google announced plan to scan millions of books held
by several huge libraries, creating searchable database
of all words
• If public domain book, system returns PDF
• If under copyright, user can see a few sentences;
system provides links to libraries and online
booksellers
• Authors Guild and publishers sued Google for copyright
infringement (copying books for commercial reasons)
• Out-of-court settlement reached
Benefits of Proposed Settlement
• Google would pay $125 million to resolve legal
claims of authors and publishers and establish Book
Rights Registry
• Readers would have much easier access to out-of-
print books at U.S. public libraries and university
libraries
• University libraries could purchase subscriptions
giving their students access to collections of some of
world’s greatest libraries
• Authors and publishers would receive payments
earned from online access of their books, plus share
of advertising revenues
Criticisms of Proposed Settlement
• Google should have gone to court
– Google had a good case that its use was a fair use,
based on precedent of Kelly v. Arriba Soft
– If Google had been found not guilty of copyright
infringement, it could have given public access to
books at lower rates
• Agreement gives Google a virtual monopoly over
orphaned works
• Potential chilling effect of Google tracking the pages
that people are viewing
Court Rejects Proposed
Settlement
• March 2011: U.S. District Court for Southern District
of New York rejected proposed settlement
• Judge ruled agreement would have:
– Given Google significant advantage over
competitors
– Rewarded Google for “wholesale copying of
copyrighted words without permission”
– Given Google liberal rights over orphaned works
End of Lecture

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