Intellectual property

IPR, plagiarism, licensing, copyright, FOSS and Creative Commons.

Computer Science/Informatics Practices5 questions
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The essentials

Intellectual property is a creation of the mind, such as an invention, a book, music, software, a design or a brand name. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) give the creator legal rights over the use of the creation for a period of time, encouraging people to create.

Key points

  • Copyright: protects literary and artistic works such as books, music, films, photographs and computer programs. It arises automatically when the work is created; registration is not required.
  • Patent: protects an invention. It gives the inventor exclusive rights to make, use and sell it for a limited period, in exchange for publicly disclosing how it works. A patent has to be applied for and granted.
  • Trademark: protects a distinctive name, logo, symbol or design that identifies the goods or services of a business.
  • Plagiarism: presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own without giving credit. Citing the source avoids plagiarism.
  • Copyright infringement: using copyrighted work without the owner's permission, even if credit is given.
  • Licence: a legal document that states how a work may be used. Proprietary software limits use, copying and modification; its source code is usually not available.
  • FOSS (Free and Open Source Software): users are free to use, study, modify and share the software, and its source code is available. "Free" refers to freedom, not necessarily price. Examples: Linux, LibreOffice, Mozilla Firefox, Python.
  • GPL (GNU General Public License): a copyleft licence; modified versions that are distributed must also be released under the GPL. Apache License is a permissive open source licence.
  • Creative Commons (CC): licences for creative works. BY means attribution required; SA means share alike; NC means non-commercial only; ND means no derivatives (no modified versions).

Common mistakes

  • Thinking giving credit makes any use legal. Credit avoids plagiarism but permission or a licence is still needed.
  • Thinking freeware and FOSS are the same; freeware is free of cost but its source code may be closed.

Practice questions

Which type of intellectual property protects a company's logo?Easy
Copying a classmate's essay and submitting it as one's own work is an example ofEasy
Which statement about Free and Open Source Software is correct?Medium
An image is shared under a CC BY-NC licence. Which use is permitted?Medium
A developer modifies a GPL-licensed program and distributes the new version. What does the GPL require?Hard
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