“Lawsuits primarily benefit the attorneys and nobody else.”
- Bryce’s Law
INTRODUCTION
The protection of intellectual property should be a significant concern to all Information Technology organizations. Without protection, commercial hardware/software vendors would quickly evaporate as others would inevitably steal their designs and programs. Corporate developers would also suffer if their ideas, inventions, and programs were misappropriated thereby causing them to lose their competitive advantage. In fact, our corporate landscape and standard of living would be radically different if we had no such protection. Fortunately, the framers of the U.S. Constitution were wise enough to implement legislation safeguarding the authorship and ownership of literature, art, and inventions, thus causing the United States to flourish in the arts and sciences. But the advent of the computer caused us to reconsider how we safeguard such property. For example, the concept of a computer program has been a bit nebulous to some people; should the source code be protected by copyright? What about the object code (executable)? Attorneys have been debating this subject over the last thirty years and there is still
general confusion in the field.
When you own a copyright to a photograph, you have complete and exclusive control of how it is reproduced, displayed and distributed. These rights may be assigned, sold, transferred or given away. If you decide to authorize others to use your copyright, also known as licensing, you may want to consider the following items:
a) Who are you giving the rights to?
b) What specific rights are you granting?
c) Are you authorizing print and/or electronic rights?
d) If you grant electronic rights, what kind? CD? Web?
e) For what time are you granting the rights?
Photographers often submit photos to publishers for inclusion in a book
or magazine. But what happens to the copyright for that photo? Does it
transfer to the publisher? What is the publisher allowed to do with the
copyright?
Unless the copyright to a photo is specifically transferred in total to a
publisher, the publisher’s use of that photo is limited by the usage
agreement. The publisher, however, creates a new copyright, called a
“collective work,” when your photo is combined with other photos, text,
illustrations, etc. Your photo then is covered by two copyrights – one for
the photo itself, and the other as part of a collective work.
Pronunciation: ‘publik dow’meyn
Definition: [noun] property rights that are held by the public at large
(Public Domain) The total absence of copyright protection. If something is “in the public domain” then anyone can copy it or use it in any way they wish. The author has none of the exclusive rights which apply to a copyright work.
The phrase “public domain” is often used incorrectly to refer to freeware or shareware (software which is copyrighted but is distributed without (advance) payment). Public domain means no copyright — no exclusive rights. In fact the phrase “public domain” has no legal status at all in the UK.
In the case of Agilent Technologies Deutschland GmbH v Waters Ltd (2005), the claimant, the proprietor of a European patent for a pump and control system, brought proceedings against the defendant for patent infringement. The patent is for a pump for delivering solvent under pressure to high-pressure liquid chromatography columns. In particular, the patent relates to the control of the flow rate of the pump by altering the stroke volume and the frequency of reciprocation of the pistons.
The legal protection known has “copyright” has come front and center over the past few years with major legal rulings regarding peer-to-peer networks on the Internet. Copyright protection, however, can be a confusing area of the law. This article details what can and cannot be protected by copyright.
Copyright Protection? - Yes
Copyright protects “original works of authorship” in a tangible, fixed form of expression. The material does need to be directly perceptible as long as it can be expressed with the aid of technology. A good example of this is a movie, which requires a projection device of some sort.
If you are trying to register any type of performing art you should follow the copyright process as explained here. Performing arts can generally be described as any artistic work intended to be “performed” directly in front of an audience or indirectly “by means of a device or process”. This includes motion pictures, audiovisual presentations, dramatic works in script form including accompanying music and musical works with accompanying words. The phrase above “intended to be performed” is crucial in determining whether to register as a performing art or as a sound recording. If you register the words and music as a performing art you are protected, but if you record a performance of the song you must then register that performance as a sound recording. If you fall within this category you should register for a performing arts copyright.
Mechanically produced fonts and the characters comprising fonts are protected under UK law as typefaces. The legal definition for typefaces incorporates letters, numerals and ornamental motifs. Fonts and typefaces created for PCs, Apple computers and Linux systems however are protected are artistic works.
Electronically Created Typefaces
What is not made clear in the Act, but follows from basic principles of copyright is that electronically created fonts are protected by copyright, provided they are original. The protection is an indirect means of protecting the individual characters.
Society is currently moving through a transition from a community whose wealth is based in tangible goods, such as the means of production, to a community whose true wealth lies in intangible forms of property. We are moving toward a period where knowledge and ideas are more valuable than physical objects. Intellectual property, such as patents, copyright, trademarks and even trade secrets are what drive many of this country’s booming sectors. With widespread internet access, the creation of intellectual property is no longer restricted to large corporations or wealthy people who can afford to develop such property. Any person can develop value through a copyright, a patentable invention or a trademark. As intellectual property continues to grow as a wealth creation tool, individuals will be faced with the challenge of determining the value of the property, and the effect that such property will have on estate taxes.
