Now we arrive at copyright, which is the most salient IP issue, if not legal issue entirely, in technology circles right now. It was this salience that initially introduced me to the ethical controversies surrounding IP law, so I'm excited to now be introduced to the nuts and bolts of it, which begins with this:
Copyright is an exclusionary right . It conveys to its owner the right to prevent others from copying, selling, performing, displaying of making a derivitive version of a work of authorship"
Copyrights differ from patents most bluntly in that they only protect against "actual copying", meaning that no matter how similar a work might be to a copyrighted work, it must have been directly copied to be subject to a successful copyright claim. As far as I can tell, "directly copied" in this context means a self-conscious duplication of a known, already copyrighted work, "no matter how similar it may be".
In some measure, this unique aspect of copyright law owes something to it's origins, at least in the common mind, in art and literature. Neither of those two is generally paid much attention by businesspeople, so neither have copyright issues loomed large on corporate rader – with the exception of media and content companies. However, with the ready ability of the Internet, particularly the web, to distribute copyrighted material at marginal cost, this perception is changing. The changing nature of copyright discussions has not yet been discussed in Essentials, but it certainly will in the coming books.
Copyright Registration
In contrast to the hoops and hurdles of establishing a patent, IP gains copyright simply by virtue of "being affixed in a tangible medium.") The examples given are: music written as notes on a sheet, and a song, speech or play recorded on tape. Likewise, I imagine a poem written on paper and cubism on canvas are similar granted copyright by virtue of material documentation. Again, in contrast to the legal hurdles of patents, the registration of a copyright ( simply require filling in filling in spaces on a two page form and sending it in to the Library of Congress.
## find link to forms, .gov ones being sketch
More equitable still, the only fee for registration is $30 filling fee – compared to the sometimes tens of thousand patents can demand.
Copyright law also has no equivlent to patent law's enablement requirement. In order to successfully claim a patent, the process/product in question must be evidenced to function as claimed. Copyright has no such need, which is espcecially important software copoyrights. Registered copyrights are available to the public, including competitors, so including the full, working code in a copyright would expose the fundemental workings of the code to potential infringers. Copying and pasting code is an easy thing, so it does seem reasonable within the structure of IP law to drop the requirement as such.
The Copyright Notice, aka "Circle C"
The ubiquitous circle C, followed by the date of publication and the name of the copyright owner, is the identifying mark of a copyright, and as stated before, is all it really takes for a creator to copyright their work. Up untill recent decades, the inclusion of the copyright notice in published was a requirement of a copyright claim, and not including the notice resulted in the loss of copyright.
It is stressed, however, that this practice has sence been abandoned, and that one cannot assume that because a work does not bear a (c) that it can be freely appropriated.
A copyright notice is required in order to be able to be able to claim damages for infringement, but a copyright owner can still obtain an injunction against further infringement irregardless of he notices presence.
First Impression
As a whole, the corporate perspective presented on copyright makes sense within the existing IP milieu, and certainly seems to the lack the excessive demands, in both legal expertise and capital, of patent law. At the heart of this ethic aggreability, I think, rests the presumption that copyright law serves to protect the integrity of creative works, where patent law seems to preserve only that others do not benefit from the productive innovations of another.
