Should I care about copyright?

Why this mini-training ?

Why this mini-training ?

Why this mini-training ?

What is copyright ?

What is copyright ?

  • Regulating copy to protect the author
  • Economic incentive of creation
    • Exclusive rights of use and distribution
    • Temporary monopoly

Criticism in the light of modern IT

  • Non-scarcity
  • Cost of enforcement
  • Freedom of knowledge
  • Useless Incentive
  • Benefits to publisher != author

Software copyright and OSS

Heavy usage of OSS

OSS licenses

  • OSS != public domain
  • Implies some duties
  • License terms enforced by copyright law

Comparaison of OSS licenses

https://choosealicense.com/

Comparaison of OSS licenses

Is there any risk to not respect the license ?

Jacobsen v. Katzer

  • 2006
  • JMRI : model railroad soft
  • Artistic License
  • Copied by KAM
  • Got $100k

Oracle v. Google

  • 2012
  • Still ongoing
  • Java API protected by copyright
  • Oracle wants $8.8B

Versata v. Ameriprise

  • 2015
  • Use of a GPLv2 licensed XML parser
  • All software considered as GPLv2 and could be forced to open sources

Conclusion

  • Audit your dependencies
  • Respect the terms
  • Avoid complications :)

Should I care about copyright?

By Thomas Guillory

Should I care about copyright?

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