Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Q&A
IP Law Basics
Secret To Privacy/Publicity
Trademark Rights
Copyright Law
Copy Distribute
Modify (create derivative works) Publicly display
Publicly perform
Sometimes patents
A derivative work is a work based upon one or more preexisting works. 17 U.S.C. 101. Some examples from the statute: translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted . . . Note the lack of software examples in the statute. Particularly challenging to tell with various kinds of software structures.
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Patents
exclude others from making, using, selling, etc. a novel, non-obvious and useful
process, machine, or composition of matter
Trade Secrets
Contract: a binding legal agreement between two parties containing rights and obligations
Enter private property Make copies of a DVD Play copyrighted music at a nightclub
Shrinkwraps Clickwraps
Browsewraps Acceptance through use
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Free speech, not free beer Free Software Foundation / Richard Stallman have advocated for Free software that can be endlessly modified and remain Free Open Source much broader, coined to dispel misconceptions, appeal to business FLOSS (Free, Libre and Open-Source Software) as broad term to encompass all
The Free Software Foundation has a fairly small budget ($1m/annual) and promotes Free distribution of software Stallman is president of FSF
Open Source often has champions from those that provide related hardware and services
Free Redistribution
No Discrimination (e.g., commercial use, geography, etc.) Licenses are not product/technology specific
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IP Licenses
Copyright license
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Micro Star v. Formgen (video gameplay maps) Combining or modifying source code easy
Linking a library? Using a GPL device driver in your proprietary kernel?
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Conceptual View
Based on Adapted
Subclassing in OO programming? (FSF says yes)
Bit-Centric View
Single file?
Embedded platforms, firmware?
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Can avoid the need to pay for licenses for commercial software Hidden costs
Academic
viral, contaminating
Provide source code for the work (offers to provide are okay) Mark modifications Notify licensees of/provide copy of the license terms
Mark modifications
Academic
Apache
BSD MIT
http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss/licenses#top20
Reciprocal/Copyleft Licenses
a.k.a. viral or contaminating
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Files Files
Distribution of source
Preserve all license and copyright notices Provide a copy of the GPL license text
Modifications
Mark changes
Distributions of binaries
Provide source code or make an offer to provide source (valid for 3 years)
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nsAutoString Char;
if (!mMathMLChar.AppendElement()) return NS_ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY; if (mask == NOTATION_LONGDIV) { Char.Assign(kLongDivChar);
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Running a proprietary application on Linux (GPLd kernel) Making remote procedure calls to a GPLd application
Combining GPLd source with your source and compiling Linking a GPL library to your proprietary application
Statically Dynamically?
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Make source code for the LGPLd library available Release modifications to the library under the LGPL Preserve notices
Permit reverse engineering for debugging But you can safely link (statically and dynamically) proprietary applications to LGPL libraries
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Modifications to existing modules subject to the CPL New/separate modules are not subject to the CPL
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Academic Licenses
Berkeley, MIT, etc.
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Distributions of source must retain notices (i.e., the license text) Distributions in binary form must be accompanied by a notice in the documentation for the software
Much less restrictive than GPL and copyleft licenses, can lead to more extensive use in commercial & proprietary applications.
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Mark modifications
Retain existing notices
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A few OSS licenses incorporate a patent license (MPL, CPL) Risk is not much different than software generally Prevents contributors from giving copyright, encouraging adoption of software, then suing on patent Some OSS licenses contain a patent defense clause Microsoft previous threat to Linux with patents
Enforcement Actions
Jacobsen v. Katzer Artistic License Court found a license whose attribution conditions were breached Software Freedom Conservancy v. Best Buy GPL Court found conditions of GPL breached, granted an injunction (barring shipment of HDTVs)
Germany
Red Hat
Android/Google
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Taint of proprietary software, requiring release of source code Unknown pedigree Patent threat
Again, not much different from risk when writing your own software
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Raise awareness with and educate engineering and management Implement open source intake process Training, code reviews
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2000: The GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License) released for software manuals, etc.
2000 - European Space Agency releases processor under the GPL 2001: Open Cola developed 2001: Wikipedia launched 2002: Creative Commons, nonprofit founded and Creative Commons (CC) licenses published
Still a license, so dependent on copyright ownership. Allows licensing based on author's choice of four different conditions (total 6 core licenses):
Shared content Wikipedia switched to CC licensing in 2009 Fiction Cory Doctorow CC Novel On NYT List Images Flickr is a major source of CC content and validation by litigation Educational Materials MIT OpenCourseWare, Connexions, Curriki.
Music No top 40 hits yet. SoundCloud has a lot of content; Wired Mags CC-licensed album.
Interesting to contrast with Facebook: some information types end up open, others not
Photographs are copyrightable material, and so can be licensed by the photographer. Flickr allows an easy way for individual users to license out some rights over 20% of Flickr photos are licensed under one.
Because Flickr (unlike Wikipedia) does not intend for its content to be re-used en masse, different licenses are permitted.
CC License by (just want credit) by-sa Percent of all CC Licenses on Flickr (25 Feb 2010) 13% 9%
by-nd
by-nc by-nc-sa (copyleft) by-nc-nd (free advertising)
5%
14% 29% 31%
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/20870
The photographer here posted on Flickr with a cc-by license, requiring only attribution Virgin Mobile used in Australia in advertisements
Dual-licensing