The Flow

FLOWCHART OF COPYLEFT

FLOWCHART OF COPYRIGHT

Cases Regarding Copyright - Part 2

Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation

  Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corporation (http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/203_F3d_596.htm), is a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled that the copying of a copyrighted BIOS software during the development of an emulator software does not constitute copyright infringement, but is covered by fair use. The court also ruled that Connectix Corp. had not tarnished Sony's PlayStation trademark by selling its emulator software, the Virtual Game Station.

    Connectix started the development of the Virtual Game Station (VGS) for the Macintosh platform in July 1998 with the aim of creating a software program that emulated Sony's popular PlayStation video games console's hardware and firmware. This would make it possible for the VGS' users to play games developed for the PlayStation on Macintosh hardware, with plans to release a Windows PC compatible version at a later date. To accomplish the emulation goals, Connectix reverse engineered the BIOS software, i.e., the firmware, of the PlayStation, first by using the unchanged BIOS to develop emulation for the hardware, and after that, by developing a BIOS of their own using the original firmware as an aid for debugging. During the development work Connectix contacted Sony, requesting “technical assistance” for completing the VGS, but this request was eventually declined in September 1998.

    The Video Game Station development reached completion in December 1998, with the software being commercially released the following month, in January 1999. Sony perceived the VGS as a threat to its video game business, and filed a complaint alleging copyright infringement as well as violations of intellectual property against Connectix on January 27, 1999. Sony drew support from fellow video game hardware manufacturers Nintendo, Sega, and 3dfx Interactive, while Connectix was backed by fellow software firms and trade associations. The district court awarded Sony an injunction blocking Connectix from copying or using the Sony BIOS code in the development of the Virtual Game Station for Windows; and

from selling the Virtual Game Station for Macintosh or the Virtual Game Station for Windows.

   The district court also impounded all of Connectix' copies of the Sony BIOS and all copies of works based upon or incorporating Sony BIOS. Connectix then successfully appealed the ruling, with the United States Courts of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversing the earlier decision.

The court's decision

    The Ninth Circuit Court's 3-0 ruling centered on deciding whether or not Connectix' copying of the PlayStation firmware while reverse engineering it was protected by fair use. The court relied heavily on the similar case between Sega Enterprises Ltd. and Accolade Inc. in 1992, where the key finding relating to Connectix v. Sony was that copying for the purpose of reverse engineering was within fair use.

Each of the four components of fair use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, the purpose and character of the use and the effect of the use on the potential market were considered by the court individually :

1. Nature of the copyrighted work

   While the Ninth District Court did acknowledge that software deserves copyright protection, the court, following the precedent of Sega vs. Accolade, deemed the PlayStation firmware to fall under a lowered degree of copyright protection due to it containing unprotected parts (functional elements) that could not be examined without copying. The court also rejected the semantic distinction between “studying” and “use” made by the district court: ("They disassembled Sony's code not just to study the concepts. They actually used that code in the development of [their] product."), finding it to be artificial.

2. Amount and substantiality of the portion used

  The court saw this criterion as being of little significance to the case at hand. While Connectix did disassemble and copy the Sony BIOS repeatedly over the course of reverse engineering, the Virtual Game Station, the final product, contained no infringing material. As a result, “this factor [held]... "very little weight." in determining the decision.

3. Purpose and character of the use

   Sony had argued that Connectix infringed Sony's copyright by making numerous intermediate copies (that is, copies of copyrighted computer code created to aid the development of a non-infringing product) of the PlayStation BIOS during the reverse engineering process. The court rejected this notion, ruling that such a copy-grounded basis for what qualified as fair use would result in software engineers choosing inefficient engineering methods that minimized the number of intermediate copies. Preventing such "wasted effort," they argued, was the very purpose of fair use.

   In addition, the court found that the ultimate purpose and character of Connectix's use of Sony's BIOS - in that it created a new platform for Sony Playstation games - qualified as "modestly transformative." This factor of fair use, therefore, lay in Connectix's favor.

4. Effect of the use upon the potential market

   The court held in favor of Connectix on this point as well. While the Virtual Game Station might very well lower Sony's Playstation console sales, its transformative status- allowing Playstation games to be played on Mac - rendered it a legitimate competitor in the market for Sony and Sony-licensed games: “For this reason, some economic loss by Sony as a result of this competition does not compel a finding of no fair use. Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly.”

   The Ninth Circuit Court also reversed the district court's ruling that the Video Game Station tarnished Sony's “PlayStation” trademark. Sony had to show that 

(1) the PlayStation “mark is famous;” 

(2) Connectix is “making commercial use of the mark;” 

(3) Connectix's “use began after the mark became famous;” and that 

(4) Connectix's “use of the mark dilutes the quality of the mark by diminishing the capacity of the mark

        to identify and distinguish goods and services.” 

   As the first three points were not under debate (Connectix conceded points (1) and (3), the court addressed only the fourth point.

   The court also took the opinion of the studies provided lacking sufficient evidence of diluting the PlayStation trademark: “The evidence here fails to show or suggest that Sony's mark or product was regarded or was likely to be regarded negatively because of its performance on Connectix's Virtual Game Station. The evidence is not even substantial on the quality of that performance. … Sony's tarnishment claim cannot support the injunction.”

    The Ninth Circuit Court reversed the district court's decision both on the copyright infringement and the trademark tarnishing claims, lifting the injunction against Connectix. Connectix immediately filed a motion with the district court to summarily dismiss Sony's lawsuit. After a failed attempt by Sony to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, the two companies settled out of court about a year later. On March 15, 2001, Sony purchased the VGS rights from Connectix. They discontinued the product June 30th of that year. Connectix itself closed in August 2003.

Cases regarding Copyright - Part 1

Sega v. Accolade 

   Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., (http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/977/977.F2d.1510.92-15655.html) is a significant case in American intellectual property law. The case involved several overlapping issues, including the scope of copyright, permissible uses for trademarks, and the scope of fair use for computer code.

  In the late 1980s, Sega became concerned about software and hardware piracy in Southeast Asia, and particularly in Taiwan. Taiwan was not a signatory of the Berne Convention on copyright, limiting Sega's legal options. However, Taiwan did allow prosecution for trademark infringement. As a result, the Sega Genesis III incorporated a technical protection mechanism intended to facilitate trademark suits against companies producing pirate Genesis games. When a game cartridge was inserted, the console would check for the presence of the string "SEGA" at a particular point in the memory contained in the cartridge. If the string was present, the console would display the message: "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES LTD." If not, the game wouldn't run.

  Accolade, a video game developer, was a legal but unlicensed third-party vendor of Genesis-compatible games. Prior to the release of the Genesis III, they had reverse-engineered a number of Sega games and noted the presence of the 'SEGA' string. Accolade engineers suspected it would at some point be used as an authorization technique and had incorporated the same string into their own games at the appropriate location.

  On October 31, 1991, Sega filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Sega raised two primary issues: first, that causing the console to display the Sega message was falsely using the Sega trademark and second, that Accolade's reverse engineering had infringed Sega's copyright. On April 3, 1992, the district court ruled that Sega was likely to prevail at trial, and issued a preliminary injunction on behalf of Sega, prohibiting future sales by Accolade of Genesis-compatible games incorporating the Sega message or using the results of the reverse engineering. Accolade appealed to the Ninth Circuit, which overruled the district court.

Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, 1992)

  Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. (http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14167398686354689030&hl=en&as_sdt=2&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr) was a court case which established the rights of users to modify copyrighted works for their own use.

   Under license from UK company Codemasters, Galoob manufactured an add-on product called Game Genie, which allowed users to modify video games by entering in certain codes; for example, a code might make the player invincible by negating the programming that updates the player's health amount. Nintendo, which sold a video game system and video games that could be modified by Game Genie, sued Galoob for copyright infringement, alleging that Game Genie made a derivative work, violating Nintendo's copyright in their video games.

   An earlier case on similar facts (Midway Manufacturing Co. v. Artic International, Inc.) favored the original copyright holder. Nintendo relied heavily on this case as precedent for its legal arguments.

   The court battle began in May of 1990, when Galoob filed a complaint against Nintendo in U.S. District Court, seeking a declaratory judgement that the Game Genie did not violate Nintendo's copyrights, as well as an injunction preventing Nintendo from modifying their NES game system to make it incompatible with the Game Genie. Nintendo responded by filing a complaint against Galoob, seeking an injunction preventing Galoob from selling the Game Genie.

   In July of 1990, the court granted Nintendo a preliminary injunction, preventing Galoob from selling the Game Genie until the court matter was resolved. It also ordered Nintendo to post a bond (initially $100,000, later increased to $15 million), in order to ensure Galoob be compensated for sales lost during the injunction, should Galoob win the case. Galoob appealed the injunction to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost.

    After over a year of legal wrangling, the trial concluded in July of 1991, with District Judge Fern M. Smith ruling in favor of Galoob, declaring that the Game Genie did not violate Nintendo's copyrights. Smith compared usage of the Game Genie to "skipping portions of a book" or fast-forwarding through a purchased movie; thus the altered game content did not constitute the creation of a derivative work as Nintendo had argued. Smith wrote, in part, "Having paid Nintendo a fair return, the consumer may experiment with the product and create new variations of play, for personal enjoyment, without creating a derivative work." Nintendo appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but lost as the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court's decision.

   In December of 1991, a hearing was held to determine how much of the $15 million bond would be awarded to Galoob to compensate for losses during the approximately one-year period they were prohibited from selling the Game Genie. The court found that because Galoob's losses actually exceeded $15 million, that Galoob was entitled to the entire amount, plus legal fees. Nintendo appealed this decision to the Ninth Circuit, but lost again. (http://openjurist.org/16/f3d/1032/nintendo-of-america-inc-v-lewis-galoob-toys-inc).

   

COPYRIGHT OR COPYLEFT??

Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights. It is an intellectual property form (such as patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete.

Copyright initially was conceived as a way for government to restrict printing; the contemporary intent of copyright is to promote the creation of new works by giving authors control of and profit from them. Copyrights are said to be territorial, which means that they do not extend beyond the territory of a specific state unless that state is a party to an international agreement. Today, however, this is less relevant since most countries are parties to at least one such agreement. While many aspects of national copyright laws have been standardized through international copyright agreements, copyright laws of most countries have some unique features.Typically, the duration of copyright is the whole life of the creator plus fifty to a hundred years from the creator's death, or a finite period for anonymous or corporate creations. Some jurisdictions have required formalities to establishing copyright, but most recognize copyright in any completed work, without formal registration. Generally, copyright is enforced as a civil matter, though some jurisdictions do apply criminal sanctions.

Most jurisdictions recognize copyright limitations, allowing "fair" exceptions to the creator's exclusivity of copyright, and giving users certain rights. The development of digital media and computer network technologies have prompted reinterpretation of these exceptions, introduced new difficulties in enforcing copyright, and inspired additional challenges to copyright law's philosophic basis. Simultaneously, businesses with great economic dependence upon copyright have advocated the extension and expansion of their copy rights, and sought additional legal and technological enforcement.

Some take the approach of looking for coherent justifications of established copyright systems, while others start with general ethical theories, such as utilitarianism and try to analyse policy through that lens. Another approach denies the meaningfulness of any ethical justification for existing copyright law, viewing it simply as a result (and perhaps an undesirable result) of political processes.Another widely debated issue is the relationship between copyrights and other forms of "intellectual property", and material property. Most scholars of copyright agree that it can be called a kind of property, because it involves the exclusion of others from something. But there is disagreement about the extent to which that fact should allow the transportation of other beliefs and intuitions about material possessions.There are many other philosophical questions which arise in the jurisprudence of copyright. They include such problems as determining when one work is "derived" from another, or deciding when information has been placed in a "tangible" or "material" form.Some critics claim copyright law protects corporate interests while criminalizing legitimate use, while proponents argue the law is fair and just.

       Copyright may apply to a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms, or "works". Specifics vary by jurisdiction, but these can include poems, theses, plays, other literary works, movies, dances, musical compositions, audio recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, software, radio and television broadcasts, and industrial designs. Graphic designs and industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions.Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed. For example, the copyright to a Mickey Mouse cartoon restricts others from making copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works based on Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of other works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are different enough to not be judged copies of Disney's. In many jurisdictions, copyright law makes exceptions to these restrictions when the work is copied for the purpose of commentary or other related uses.

Copyright laws are standardized somewhat through international conventions such as the Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention. These multilateral treaties have been ratified by nearly all countries, and international organizations such as the European Union or World Trade Organization require their member states to comply with them.

Typically, a work must meet minimal standards of originality in order to qualify for copyright, and the copyright expires after a set period of time (some jurisdictions may allow this to be extended). Different countries impose different tests, although generally the requirements are low; in the United Kingdom there has to be some 'skill, labour and judgment' that has gone into it. In Australia and the United Kingdom it has been held that a single word is insufficient to comprise a copyright work. However, single words or a short string of words can sometimes be registered as a trademark instead.

Copyright law recognises the right of an author based on whether the work actually is an original creation, rather than based on whether it is unique; two authors may own copyright on two substantially identical works, if it is determined that the duplication was coincidental, and neither was copied from the other.

In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights.However, while registration isn't needed to exercise copyright, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enables the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees. (In the USA, registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual damages and lost profits.)

The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the author rather than the author himself, if the work is a "work for hire". For example in English law, the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that if a copyrighted work is made by an employee in the course of that employment, the copyright is automatically owned by the employer which would be a "Work for Hire."Copyrights are generally enforced by the holder in a civil law court, but there are also criminal infringement statutes in some jurisdictions. While central registries are kept in some countries which aid in proving claims of ownership, registering does not necessarily prove ownership, nor does the fact of copying (even without permission) necessarily prove that copyright was infringed. Criminal sanctions are generally aimed at serious counterfeiting activity, but are now becoming more commonplace as copyright collectives such as the RIAA are increasingly targeting the file sharing home Internet user. Thus far, however, most such cases against file sharers have been settled out of court.

Meanwhile, in copyleft, a copyright holder grants an irrevocable license to the recipient of a copy, generally permitting the free unlimited use, modification and redistribution of copies, often including sale of media or auxiliary materials which may carry a different copyright license (e.g. documentation).The distinctive condition to that license is that any modifications to the work, if redistributed, must carry the same permissions (i.e. license terms) and be made available in a form which facilitates modification.For software, this means in source code.

  Copyleft applies copyright law to force derivative works to also be released with a copyleft license. So long as all of those wanting to modify the work accept the terms, the net effect is to facilitate successive improvement by a wide range of contributors. Those who are unwilling or unable to accept the terms are prohibited from creating derivative works.No restrictions apply to works in the public domain. They may be freely modified, and the creator of the derivative work may license any new portions of the derivative work, but not the public domain portion, under any terms, or none. The resulting derivative work may not be available to the creators of the original or may compete with them.

     Copyleft is one of the key features in free software/open source licences, and is the licenses' legal framework to ensure that derivatives of the licensed work stay free/open. If the licensee fails to distribute derivative works under the same license he will face legal consequences - the license is terminated, leaving the licensee without permission to copy, distribute, display publicly, or prepare derivative works of the software.Other free software licenses, such as those used by the BSD operating systems, the X Window System and the Apache web server, are not copyleft licenses because they do not require the licensee to distribute derivative works under the same license. There is an ongoing debate as to which class of license provides a larger degree of freedom. This debate hinges on complex issues such as the definition of freedom and whose freedoms are more important. It is sometimes argued that the copyleft licenses attempt to maximize the freedom of all potential recipients in the future (freedom from the creation of proprietary software), while non-copyleft free software licenses maximize the freedom of the initial recipient (freedom to create proprietary software).An example of a free software license that uses strong copyleft is the GNU General Public License. Free software licenses that use weak copyleft include the GNU Lesser General Public License and the Mozilla Public License. Examples of non-copyleft free software licenses include the Q Public License, the X11 license, and the BSD licenses.Copyleft licenses for materials other than software include the Creative Commons ShareAlike licenses and the GNU Free Documentation License. The latter is being used for the content of Wikipedia. The Free Art license is a license that can be applied to any work of art.

   Copyleft licenses are sometimes referred to as viral copyright licenses, often by those who feel that they may lose out as a result, because any works derived from a copylefted work must themselves be copylefted. The term "viral" implies propagation like that of a biological virus through an entire organ of similar cells or species of similar bodies. In context of legally binding contracts and licenses, "viral" refers to anything, especially anything memetic, that propagates itself by attaching itself to something else, regardless of whether the viral assertions themselves add value to the individual work. The viral metaphor is over-used but is reasonable to help distinguish between free software and open source in software and documentation projects. Most advocates of copyleft argue that the analogy between copyleft and computer viruses does not apply. As they point out, computer viruses generally infect computers without the awareness of the user, whereas the copyleft actually grants the user certain permissions to distribute modified programs, which is not allowed under copyright law without permission of the copyright holder. Most proprietary software licenses do not allow such distribution. Furthermore, copyright itself is "viral" in this sense, since any works derived from a copyrighted work must have permission from and obey any conditions set by the original copyright holder.

   The view that copyleft licenses are viral is supported by Microsoft, who say that if a product uses GPLed code, that product automatically escapes the creator's control and becomes GPLed, leaving the creator no recourse. Obviously, working for a software company will have a like effect. Advocates, including Eben Moglen, Professor of Law at Columbia University and counsel for the Free Software Foundation, note that this is not true since the GPL is a license, not a contract.Microsoft, and others, in describing the GPL as a "viral license", may also be referring to the idea that any release of something new under the GPL would seem to create a positive feedback network effect, in which over time there will be an ever-expanding amount of copylefted code. Code reuse is often useful in software engineering, as a way to save effort and get on with a project, especially when a perfectly sensible design and implementation has already been done and is available. In contrast, those working on non-copylefted programs will have to "reinvent the wheel" for parts of their programs.This is often cited as a disadvantage of non-copylefted software development.

    Many feel that copyleft licenses are desirable and popular for shared works precisely because they are viral, and apply to all derivative works, which are thus "infected" by the requirement to re-integrate changes deemed desirable by any party down the line. This requirement is seen as important because it ensures uniform license terms and free access, and makes copyleft projects resistant to unnecessary forking because all maintainers, of the original work or other versions, may use any modifications released by anyone. Useful changes tend to be merged, and different versions are maintained only to the extent that they are useful. Without the "viral" license, variant terms can apply to the forks, derivative works can be controlled commercially by the parties that extend or translate them, and the project would degrade to an open source one. It is thought that Linux has not suffered the same fragmentation as Unix because it is copylefted.

Thus, this is basically what when down between both of the topic discussed under this interactive blog, which is on the matter of copyleft and copyright. There are many  pros and cons on these two concepts as been laid out on the above explanation.

A 133517

http://www.acceity.org/2010/09/copyright-and-copyleft/

http://www.eyemagazine.com/opinion.php?id=117&oid=290

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_licence

http://www.myipo.gov.my/en/copyright/general-information.html

http://www.utem.edu.my/crim/download/7copyright.pdf

ABOUT COPYLEFT

          A copyleft license indicates that every owner of the work has the right to use it without limitation, (re)distribute it to any extent, and modify it in any way.  Additionally, the copyleft license requires that every derivation of the work also be covered under the same terms. Copyleft licenses may also include provisions to assure that the conditions of the license cannot be revoked.

      In the case of software, a copyleft license may require that the work, and its derivations, always be available in a format that facilitates modification.  For example, it may be required that the source code for a program be provided in a fully-accessible form. 

        The types of copyleft licenses differ from country to country, as each has its own rules

concerning copyright and intellectual property.  In each country, a copyleft license must be

specifically tailored to work creatively within the constraints of that country’s law.  One type of

license that is used in Europe, for example, is the CeCILL License. 

CURRENT STATE OF COPYLEFT    

       The current state of copyleft is characterized by several trends and developments. Version 2, the current version of the General Public License, was finalized in June, 1991. Currently, the Free Software Foundation is working on version 3 as part of its GPL Version 3 Development and Publicity Project.  Additionally, several other variations of the GPL have been introduced in the years since the first was created, each serving a particular purpose and containing different specifications for protections and rights regarding a work.  Examples include the GNU Lesser General Public License (which succeeded the GNU Library General Public

License) and the GNU Free Documentation License (which is used by Wikipedia). 

        Beyond software, the idea of copyleft has been extended to other areas, including the arts. In diverse ways, organizations such as Creative Commons, open-source record labels, and the Libre Society are promoting the use of licenses with copyleft components and making it easier for individuals to copyleft their works.   

       Another emerging trend is the creation of open-source record labels that release music under copyleft licenses, allowing collaborative work and redistribution without the restrictions of copyright.  These labels are formed and supported by people who believe that the reappropriation and reinterpretation of music is fundamental and necessary for its continued evolution. Some examples of open-source record labels include Krayola Records, Magnatune, and Opsound. (https://www.msu.edu/~dinkgra2/copyleft-dinkgrave.pdf?q=copyleft)

COPYLEFT VS. COPYRIGHT

• CopyLeft is the same as Copyright in the sense that the legal process starts the same: by copyrighting a product, software, or document
• The difference is introduced by adding a specific license to the copyright that places restrictions on the future usages of the copyrighted product
• Ironically, these restrictions have the ability to categorize the product as 'free'
• CopyLeft is essentially the opposite process of making products free to users, whereas Copyright tries to restrict freedom by making software proprietary.

EXAMPLES OF COPYLEFT

• Copyleft is now widely used to CopyLeft software such as Mozilla Firefox, Java, and OpenOffice.
• http://sourceforge.net/ contains a large variety of computer software that has been CopyLefted to constitute as free software.  

copyleft in the music industry cover of Girl Talk's album 'All Day'

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF COPYLEFT

Advantages: 

• CopyLeft software and open content are usually free of charge and have lower consulting fees compared with proprietary software
• After purchasing a CopyLefted program, you have the right to customize it your company’s needs

• Modified software that is upgraded and updated by the developer community is available to your company

• Since CopyLefted software is available, Copyrighted software has to compete in price and efficiency 

Disadvantage: 

• Customized software cannot be claimed as one’s own and the source code must always be attached when being distributed

• CopyLeft laws are complex and full of legal terms, which deters some companies from using CopyLefted software

• CopyLeft forces future usages of the products to remain free and open to the community to modify

• The original author of the product may have a conflict with the future uses of the original product.

(http://e107copyleft.blogspot.com/p/future-of-copyleft.html)

CONCLUSION

       Copyleft is not a new idea, but with the growing opportunities for it to expand its reach through the Internet, it is still young, and much could still change.  Internet-based organizations such as Creative Commons are trying to facilitate creators of original works in securing that the rights to their works are protected and that others can easily understand what they can do with these works.  They accomplish this by offering a variety of different standard licenses that users can modify.  Other organizations take a different approach to copyleft, sometimes through more radical expression in the forms of “culture jamming,” or through a more “peaceful” approach, such as the open source movement.  Likely, these divisions within the copyleft community will continue to grow and expand on their own, sharing some basic ideas, but being very different in other areas.  
(https://www.msu.edu/~dinkgra2/copyleft-dinkgrave.pdf?q=copyleft)

Copyright in Malaysia

     As have been posted earlier in the earlier post on the discussion of copyright in general, here, in Malaysia, copyright is the exclusive right given to the owner of a copyright for a specific period. Copyright protection in Malaysia is governed by the Copyright Act 1987(http://www.agc.gov.my/Akta/Vol.%207/Act%20332.pdf). Historically, computer programs were not effectively protected by copyrights because computer programs were not viewed as a fixed, tangible object: object code was viewed as a utilitarian good produced from source code rather than as a creative work but however these situation has changed.

    There is no system of registration for copyright in Malaysia. In marked contrast to patent rights, copyright begins automatically on the creation of a 'work' without the need for compliance with any formalities. The only prerequisites for protection, which apply to all works that is eligible is protected automatically upon fulfillment of the following conditions :

          i) sufficient effort has been made to make the work original
             in character ;

         ii) the work has been written down, recorded or reduced to a
             material form;

        iii) the author is a qualified person ; or

        iv) the work is made in Malaysia or the work is first published 
             in Malaysia.

Copyright Protection

   Works eligible for protection are:

1. literary works;      
2. musical works;
3. artistic works;
4. films;
5. sound recordings;
6. broadcasts; and
7. derivative works.

These works shall be protected irrespective of their quality and purpose for which they were created. However, the copyright protection shall only extend to expression and not ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.

   LATEST DEVELOPMENT IN MALAYSIA’S COPYRIGHT LAW

     Malaysia has already taken a number of steps toward updating its copyright laws to meet the challenges of the internet era. In response to the explosion of the internet industry, The Malaysian Copyright Act 1987 was replaced by the Copyright Act 1997 which came into force on the 1^st April 1999.  The provision of the new Act makes unauthorised transmission of copyright works over the Internet and infringement of copyright.  As for the definition of the literary work, it now includes table of compilations “whether or not expressed in words, figures of symbols and whether or not in a visible form”. 

    The amended Act encompasses some of the standards contained in the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty

 (WPPT), such as recognizing the copyright owner’s exclusive rights to control work that is transmitted via wire or wireless means to the public, including making available this work to the public in such a way that members of the public may access the work from a place and at a time individually chosen by them.

     This Act certainly would help to overcome any effective technological measures aimed at restricting access to work, removal or alteration of any electronics rights management information without authority, or distribution, importation for distribution or communication to the public, without authority, works or copies of works in respect of which electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority.   All in all, the new Act make it clear that an author has the right to be identified and has moral right against any mutilation and distortion of his work.

     These provisions are aimed at ensuring adequate protection of intellectual property rights for companies investing in the IT and multimedia environment.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright

     Copyright, in essence, a right given to authors or creators of "works", such as books, films, or computer programs, to control the copying or other exploitation of such works. In addition to controlling the making of copies, the owner of copyright in a work has the exclusive right to control publication, performance, broadcasting and the making of adaptations of the work. In certain cases, the author, director or commissioner of a work may be entitled to exercise certain 'moral rights' which may include the right to be identified with a work and to object to distortion or unjustified treatment of work. Copyright is one of a number of intellectual property rights, such as patents, trademarks and design rights that allow the creator to exploit the work by licensing others to use it. The moment a work is created, it automatically becomes copyrighted. Examples of works include literary pieces, drawings, paintings, photographs, film, music and sound recordings and, more recently, computer software programs.

      Many people confuse copyright with physical property. Although it is referred to as an intellectual property right, it is not actually property in the same sense as the ownership of a house or car. This is because essentially copyright is a right to copy the expression of an idea rather than an unlimited property right – a copy-right. The reason for the distinction between copyright and property rights in general is that after the initial effort has been put into producing a piece of artwork or a manuscript it can be infinitely reproduced at little or no extra cost. This is very different to physical property, which will slowly wear out. Additionally, if, say, I give you a copy of the artwork, it does not diminish my own use of it – we can all have a copy without anybody losing out. Again, contrasted with physical property, if I own a car, only I can drive it, since only one person at a time can use that car.

     There was little need for copyright (or patent) protection for early computer programs. There were few computers, and most software was custom-developed for in-house applications. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that computer programs were being actively marketed by a software industry besides the computer manufacturers. Before widely-marketed software, it was easy to protect by a contract or license agreement any computer program that was being marketed.

While a contract restricted what people receiving the software could do with it, particularly limiting their further distribution of the software, it could not bind people who were not parties to the contract. A person finding a computer program on the street could do anything he or she wanted with it. Copyright law, on the other hand, provides protection for a computer program even when no contract exists.

       

     

THE HISTORY OF COPYLEFT

       Though copyleft now extends to such diverse media as blogs, paintings, songs, and television broadcasts, it originated with computer software.  In the 1980s, “portable software” programs that could run on different types of computers emerged, allowing users to modify and redistribute the software.  This, however, conflicted with the existing business models of software companies, which lead to an increase in copyrighted programs with explicit limits on the modification and redistribution of the software.  For many programs, the source code was no longer available for viewing (or modifying) by interested users. 

       At that time, a hacker by the name of Richard Matthew Stallman (then commonly known as “RMS”) was working as a programmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (commonly referred to as the MIT AI Lab).  Specifically, Stallman and his peers were working on a “Lisp interpreter” program (Lisp being a computer programming language) for creating and modifying software.  When some of his peers split from the group to pursue the project on their own terms, they asked Stallman for a public domain version of the source code for the program, which they then improved upon.  

      When Stallman requested access to this code with the improvements, he was denied by the group, called Symbolics.  In 1984, Stallman decided to counter this problem, which he called “software hoarding,” by working within the existing legal framework of copyright law.  He left the MIT AI Lab to dedicate more of his time to what he called the GNU project (the name coming from what eventually became the GNU/Linux operating system).  

      The result was the first copyleft license, the GNU General Public License (GPL).  While not recognized at that time as a “copyleft license,” the GPL enabled the software designer, if they wished, to grant all subsequent users of their work the rights to modify and redistribute the software.  

       Stallman then started the non-profit Free Software Foundation (FSF), which “is dedicated to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs” by promoting the development and use of free software. 

       The GNU GPL became the most widely-used license for free software in the world, and the idea has since spread to other forms of media through a variety of licenses and organizations. These groups are dedicated to making it easier for individuals to selectively share and allow redistribution and modification of their works, ranging from paintings to songs, to novels, and in a growing number of ways.  
(https://www.msu.edu/~dinkgra2/copyleft-dinkgrave.pdf?q=copyleft)

DEFINITION OF COPYRIGHT AND COPYLEFT

This blog is dedicated to discuss on computer programs. So far, there are two types of intellectual property hotly debated nowadays concerning copyright. Hence, via this blog my team mates would explain further about the concerned topic. First and foremost before we get too deep into discussion I would like to briefly explain what is copyright and copyleft.


Generally in laymen words a "copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)". However,since this blog is to further explain about computer law hence we lay down the legal definition for copyright which is defined as the exclusive right given to the owner of a copyright for a specific period. Copyright protection in Malaysia is governed by the Copyright Act 1987. Inaddition to this, there is no clear distinction to what copyright is. Therefore the Act provides the guidelines as to what copyright should be to better serve the understanding of all people." A copyrighted work is a work that is eligible and protected automatically upon fulfillment of the following conditions:- 


       sufficient effort has been expected to make the work original in character;
       the work has been written down, recorded or reduced to a material form; 
       the author is qualified person or the work is made in Malaysia or the workis first published in Malaysia(http://www.myipo.gov.my/en/copyright/general-information.html)." 


Besides copyright, the "concept of copyleft first arose in the Spanish courts in 2005" is used to signify the opposite( http://jiplp.oxfordjournals.org/content/4/11/815.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=rdYNedicc2azPwm). For instance, copyright provides the protection to the programmer to stop other programmers from copying their work. However, it is the exact opposite in the use of copyleft which allows other programmers to have the freedom to improve the software and pass it to other for more improvements and thus the freedom to copy and improve the previous programmer continues( http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/). According to the definition by wikipedia  a "copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to maintain copyright conditions for works such as computer software, documents and art. In general, copyright law is used by an author to prohibit others from reproducing, adapting, or distributing copies of the author's work. In contrast, under copyleft, an author may give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute it and require that any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licensing agreement( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft)." 


In conclusion, copyright is the first legal standing used to provide protections to the work of the programmer. Short after that the programmers are beginning to think about the new concept of copyleft for the sake of enquiring new improvements in creativity to create a software.hence, copyleft had became a concept right next to copyleft which is still a little vague to be describe but as a whole it is the opposite of copyright with certain limited boundries which still safeguard some limitations to the work ie. software created by the successor and proprietor in the latter.


matrix number: A135603
Faculty of Law, UKM