LIS-5411
Unit II
Freely Available Information
Morals, Ethics, Law?
Morals, Ethics, Law?
I start here because, in this realm, there's a
very very huge disjoint...
Morals, Ethics, Law?
Ideally: Morals → Ethics → Law. Ethics → Ethics → Law. Law.
Really, it's all over the place.
Influencers (there may be more)
●
“Micro”
–
●
needs, etiquette, psychology
“Macro”
–
Economics, religion, sociology
●
Code/Technology/Science
●
Law
Morals, Ethics, Law?
“The Lambchop Machine”
Morals, Ethics, Law?
“The Lambchop Machine”
When X is free, when is it appropriate, if ever,
to deny X to someone?
Ownership /Property
- Simple, intuitively; 3 year olds understand it.
MINE!
Ownership /Property
But, consider the law(s) of:
–
Personal Property
–
Real Property
–
And later Intellectual Property
Property!
STILL, fundamentally about exclusion.
Which makes sense for “limited” stuff; but
could be likened to a state-sponsored
monopoly
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8
To promote the Progress of Science and
useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to
Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to
their respective Writings and Discoveries.
“Intellectual” “Property”
Rewarding creators is a means to an end, not
the end itself.
(Sort of) Intellectual Property
●
Copyright
●
Patent
●
Trademark
●
Trade Secret
The weirdos
(not governed by the IP clause)
Trade Secret
Trademark
Trade Secret
●
●
“Privately held info that confers economic advantage or
benefit”
Different from the others because ITS A SECRET. (think
about it, the others are PUBLICLY KNOWN)
●
Must “make efforts to protect”
●
Perpetual
●
Something like a corporate right of privacy
Trademark
●
Different from the others in that it's not (theoretically)
inherently valuable, but only symbolically
●
“Source of Origin”
●
Potentially perpetual
●
Can be a very wide range of “things”
(names, phrases, logos, even sounds, smells
and colors)
Trademark
Mostly not too controversial, except:
●
Unfairly scoped and/or wielded (e.g. Sam Bucks Coffee?)
●
Weirdly Deceptive? (Famous Amos Cookies?)
●
And wait – what is FSU doing?
Definitely Intellectual Property
●
Copyright
●
Patent
Patent (theory)
Protects inventions and ideas
Must be:
●
Novel (new)
●
Non-obvious
●
Useful
Theoretically Non-patentable
Naturally occuring things like – plants and
algorithms.
BUT
Simply patent the “process”
Reverse Engineering v. Stealing?
Patent don't care.
This is why a lot of people oppose them
CATEGORICALLY
Design Patent?
Weird, and you'll see them more soon,
because of a shift from
- Deep descriptions
to
- General perception
Patent in Practice (re software)
CHAOS AND WAR!
●
Difficult to get if you're a little guy
●
If you're big they're “easy”-(the joke is, just add “on a computer” to anything)
●
●
So, just buy up tons of them and point them at other companies as
needed.
(yeah, a lot of people think this is pretty ugly. e.g. “Patent Trolls”)
Copyright
●
Automatic (Berne Convention)
–
but, must be registered to sue
●
“Expression of an idea”
●
Not infinite, but almost-- (70+life)
Fair Use
–
Purpose/Character
–
Nature of copied work
–
Amount of copied work
–
Effect on “value”
Fair Use (is weird)
●
(not a right, but a defense)
–
Purpose/Character of copying work
–
Nature of copied work
–
Amount of copied work
(weird b/c “parody/satire”)
–
Effect on “value”
+ The “5th” measure. Is it icky or weird?