Copyright in Software business
Posted on 2008-09-22 23:51:04 EEST.
I've started a introduction course about legistlation in software business. I'll write some articles based on the memos that I've written during lectures. This first article is about copyright. One remark: the issues I discuss may contain my personal opinions and are more or less based on finnish law.
Copyright itself is an interesting concept. It is used to protect the rights of the person who does the work. This is very straightforward with classical art (writings, paintings...) The very software code itself does contain some more or less interesting exceptions.
Code has copyright because it equates to work of art. Yes! all coders are artists! But for who you work for? If you are a independent researcher, project worker or teacher at university or such your code that you do belongs to you and you only if you have not agreed otherwise. Also if you work as a private via your trade name it is not concidered as a standard working agreement so the copyrights will remain with you.
Naturally all technical plans and architectural charts are protected by copyright if they are unique and point one's creativity. But have you ever concidered if your detailed plans are stolen and someone makes implementation by using them? Months of carefull design is stolen and you know who did it and the he releases the software. Can you sue them?
This was quite suprising to know. No you cannot sue them. It's illegal to steal stuff but the implementation is completely legal since it is concidered as a separate work.
But what else is not protected? Implementations of some standard are not concidered as unique work. Even if you copy routines and code as it is and if that is the only way to implement the standard you are not making an infringement.
Last thing to point out is the copyright in opensource industry. There are some rules about screen of name and honour and requirement to give credits with good fashion. For example in Midgard Project the about screen and pear manifests implement quite well that requirement! However there is one exception. In embedded systems you cannot demand that your name will be shown. So if you've made an OS speech synthetizier that is used in elevator, you cannod force them that it should shout your name for exampe once an hour.
Next lecture is about software patents. Let's see if there is anything to write about them,
Copyright itself is an interesting concept. It is used to protect the rights of the person who does the work. This is very straightforward with classical art (writings, paintings...) The very software code itself does contain some more or less interesting exceptions.
Code has copyright because it equates to work of art. Yes! all coders are artists! But for who you work for? If you are a independent researcher, project worker or teacher at university or such your code that you do belongs to you and you only if you have not agreed otherwise. Also if you work as a private via your trade name it is not concidered as a standard working agreement so the copyrights will remain with you.
Naturally all technical plans and architectural charts are protected by copyright if they are unique and point one's creativity. But have you ever concidered if your detailed plans are stolen and someone makes implementation by using them? Months of carefull design is stolen and you know who did it and the he releases the software. Can you sue them?
This was quite suprising to know. No you cannot sue them. It's illegal to steal stuff but the implementation is completely legal since it is concidered as a separate work.
But what else is not protected? Implementations of some standard are not concidered as unique work. Even if you copy routines and code as it is and if that is the only way to implement the standard you are not making an infringement.
Last thing to point out is the copyright in opensource industry. There are some rules about screen of name and honour and requirement to give credits with good fashion. For example in Midgard Project the about screen and pear manifests implement quite well that requirement! However there is one exception. In embedded systems you cannot demand that your name will be shown. So if you've made an OS speech synthetizier that is used in elevator, you cannod force them that it should shout your name for exampe once an hour.
Next lecture is about software patents. Let's see if there is anything to write about them,