Consequences of Uses of Computing 1
The Law
The Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 affects how people can acquire, use and share
ideas, software and media.
Patent
A government authority or licence conferring a right or title for a set period, especially the
sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention.
Computing has seen patents in hardware and more recently in software. There are many
people who believe that software patents are damaging to Computer Science, as they stop
innovation and stifle creativity.
Other people see software patents as important in defending the intellectual property of
inventors, if someone creates something new they should be rewarded for it.
Copyright
Copyright is one of the main types of intellectual property - others include designs, patents
and trademarks. Intellectual property allows a person to own things they create in the same
way as something physical can be owned. It is the right to prevent others copying or
reproducing someone's work.
The main legislation dealing with copyright in the United Kingdom is the Copyright, Design
and Patents Act, 1988
Open Source licenses generally mean that if you create software that makes changes to open source
code, and choose to release it, you must release your new code under the same Open Source
license, this is called Copy-Left.
1) What are the main restrictions under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988?
Use copyright material without permission, use patented design without permission, edit
programs without permission, copy or distribute software when you don't have permission.
2) There are various types of licence for software: single-user, multi-user, site, public
domain, freeware, shareware and concurrent user. Describe each of these, explaining how
they differ from each other.
Single-user license: For one user
Multi-user license: For more than one user
Public domain: It isn’t licence
Freeware: Free to use
Shareware: Free to use but the copyright holder or author holds all the rights, with a few specific
exceptions.
Concurrent user: Limit to certain number people which is decided before.