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Software Law
Software law refers to the legal remedies available to protect software-based assets. Software may, under various circumstances and in various countries, be restricted by patent or copyright or both. Most commercial software is sold under some kind of software license agreement. See also * Legal aspects of computing * Software copyright * Software patent * Software license * Software license agreement * Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ... * Free and open source software References *Frederic William Neitzke. A Software Law Primer. Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1984Google*Robert Gomulkiewicz. Software Law and its Application. Aspen Publishing. 2023Google {{law-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Patent
A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something typically eligible for patents, and an abstract concept, which is typically not. This gray area, along with the difficulty of patent evaluation for intangible, technical works such as libraries and algorithms, makes software patents a frequent subject of controversy and litigation. Different jurisdictions have radically different policies concerning software patents, including a blanket ban, no restrictions, or attempts to distinguish between purely mathematical constructs and "embodiments" of these constructs. For example, an algorithm itself may be judged unpatentable, but its use in software judged patentable. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time, usual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Copyright
Software copyright is the application of copyright in law to machine-readable software. While many of the legal principles and policy debates concerning software copyright have close parallels in other domains of copyright law, there are a number of distinctive issues that arise with software. This article primarily focuses on topics particular to software. Software copyright is used by software developers and proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorized copying of their software. Free and open source licenses also rely on copyright law to enforce their terms. For instance, copyleft licenses impose a duty on licensees to share their modifications to the work with the user or copy owner under some circumstances. No such duty would apply had the software in question been in the public domain. National and supranational laws Canada In Canada, software is protected as a literary work under the Copyright Act of Canada. Copyright is acquired automatically when an orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software License Agreement
An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or End user, end-user. The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has been recognized since the 1970s in the United States. Initially, EULAs were often printed as shrink wrap contracts, where tearing the shrink wrap indicated acceptance. Software distributed via the internet is more commonly licensed via clickwrap (where the user clicks to agree to the license) or browsewrap (continuing to browse the website indicates agreement). Most companies prefer to sell licenses rather than copies of the software because it enables them to enforce stricter terms on the end user in a number of domains, especially by prohibiting transfer of ownership or use on multiple computers, and by asserting ownership of the copyright of derivative works, such as user-generated content in video games. Enforceability of EUL ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legal Aspects Of Computing
Information technology law (IT law), also known as information, communication and technology law (ICT law) or cyberlaw, concerns the juridical regulation of information technology, its possibilities and the consequences of its use, including computing, software coding, artificial intelligence, the internet and virtual worlds. The ICT field of law comprises elements of various branches of law, originating under various acts or statutes of parliaments, the common and continental law and international law. Some important areas it covers are information and data, communication, and information technology, both software and hardware and technical communications technology, including coding and protocols. Due to the shifting and adapting nature of the technological industry, the nature, source and derivation of this information legal system and ideology changes significantly across borders, economies and in time. As a base structure, Information technology law is related to primarily g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Copyright
Software copyright is the application of copyright in law to machine-readable software. While many of the legal principles and policy debates concerning software copyright have close parallels in other domains of copyright law, there are a number of distinctive issues that arise with software. This article primarily focuses on topics particular to software. Software copyright is used by software developers and proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorized copying of their software. Free and open source licenses also rely on copyright law to enforce their terms. For instance, copyleft licenses impose a duty on licensees to share their modifications to the work with the user or copy owner under some circumstances. No such duty would apply had the software in question been in the public domain. National and supranational laws Canada In Canada, software is protected as a literary work under the Copyright Act of Canada. Copyright is acquired automatically when an orig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Patent
A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something typically eligible for patents, and an abstract concept, which is typically not. This gray area, along with the difficulty of patent evaluation for intangible, technical works such as libraries and algorithms, makes software patents a frequent subject of controversy and litigation. Different jurisdictions have radically different policies concerning software patents, including a blanket ban, no restrictions, or attempts to distinguish between purely mathematical constructs and "embodiments" of these constructs. For example, an algorithm itself may be judged unpatentable, but its use in software judged patentable. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time, usual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software License
A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Since the 1970s, software copyright has been recognized in the United States. Despite the copyright being recognized, most companies prefer to sell licenses rather than copies of the software because it enables them to enforce stricter terms on redistribution. Very few purchasers read any part of the license, initially shrink-wrap contracts and now most commonly encountered as clickwrap or browsewrap. The enforceability of this kind of license is a matter of controversy and is limited in some jurisdictions. Service-level agreements are another type of software license where the vendor agrees to provide a level of service to the purchaser, often backed by financial penalties. Copyleft is a type of license that mandates derivative works to be licensed under the license's terms. Copyleft licenses exist for free and open-source software, but also for commercial applications like the Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software License Agreement
An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or End user, end-user. The practice of selling licenses to rather than copies of software predates the recognition of software copyright, which has been recognized since the 1970s in the United States. Initially, EULAs were often printed as shrink wrap contracts, where tearing the shrink wrap indicated acceptance. Software distributed via the internet is more commonly licensed via clickwrap (where the user clicks to agree to the license) or browsewrap (continuing to browse the website indicates agreement). Most companies prefer to sell licenses rather than copies of the software because it enables them to enforce stricter terms on the end user in a number of domains, especially by prohibiting transfer of ownership or use on multiple computers, and by asserting ownership of the copyright of derivative works, such as user-generated content in video games. Enforceability of EUL ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proprietary Software
Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing the software or modifying it, and—in some cases, as is the case with some patent-encumbered and EULA-bound software—from making use of the software on their own, thereby restricting their freedoms. Proprietary software is a subset of non-free software, a term defined in contrast to free and open-source software; non-commercial licenses such as CC BY-NC are not deemed proprietary, but are non-free. Proprietary software may either be closed-source software or source-available software. Types Origin Until the late 1960s, computers—especially large and expensive mainframe computers, machines in specially air-conditioned computer rooms—were usually leased to customers rather than Sales, sold. Service and all software available ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free And Open Source Software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free software and open-source software. The rights guaranteed by FOSS originate from the "Four Essential Freedoms" of ''The Free Software Definition'' and the criteria of ''The Open Source Definition''. All FOSS can have publicly available source code, but not all source-available software is FOSS. FOSS is the opposite of proprietary software, which is licensed restrictively or has undisclosed source code. The historical precursor to FOSS was the hobbyist and academic public domain software ecosystem of the 1960s to 1980s. Free and open-source operating systems such as Linux distributions and descendants of BSD are widely used, powering millions of server (computing), servers, desktop computer, desktops, smartphones, and othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
