CS270: Professional Practices
BS Cyber Security – 8th Semester
Week # 16 - Date: Monday | May 26, 2025
Lecture 37:
Intellectual Property
Ch# 04: Book: Ethics for the Information Age by Michael J. Quinn
Instructor:
Muhammad Ahsan Qureshi
Lecturer (Cyber Security)
Department of Computer Science, AU A&AC, Kamra
Email ID: [email protected]
Office: 2nd Floor, Room # 117
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Chapter 4:
Intellectual Property
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Chapter Overview
• Introduction
• Intellectual property rights
• Protecting intellectual property
• Fair use
• New restrictions on use
• Peer-to-peer networks and cyberlockers
• Protections for software
• Open-source software
• Legitimacy of intellectual property protection for
software
• Creative Commons
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4.6 Peer-to-Peer Networks and
Cyberlockers
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Peer-to-Peer Networks
• Peer-to-peer network
– Transient network
– Connects computers running same networking
program
– Computers can access files stored on each other’s
hard drives
• How P2P networks facilitate data exchange
– Give each user access to data stored in many other
computers
– Support simultaneous file transfers among arbitrary
pairs of computers
– Allow users to identify systems with faster file
exchange speeds 1-5
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A Peer-to-Peer Network
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Cyberlockers
• Also called file-hosting services or cloud
storage services
• Internet-based file-sharing services
• Allow users to upload and download
password-protected files
• Support workgroup collaboration
• Make sharing of copyrighted material easy
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Napster
• Peer-to-peer music exchange network
• Began operation in 1999
• Sued by RIAA for copyright violations
• Courts ruled in favor of RIAA
• Went off-line in July 2001
• Re-emerged in 2003 as a subscription
music service
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FastTrack
• Second-generation peer-to-peer network
technology
• Used by KaZaA and Grokster
• Distributes index among large number of
“supernodes”
• Cannot be shut down as easily as Napster
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Comparing Napster and FastTrack
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BitTorrent
• Broadband connections: download much
faster than upload
• BitTorrent speeds downloading
– Files broken into pieces
– Different pieces downloaded from different
computers
• Used for downloading large files
– Computer programs
– Television shows
– Movies
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Concept Behind BitTorrent
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RIAA Lawsuits
• April 2003: RIAA warned file swappers they
could face legal penalties
• RIAA subpoenaed Verizon for identities of
people suspected of running supernodes
• Judge ruled in favor of Verizon
• September 2003: RIAA sued 261 individuals
• December 2003: U.S. Court of Appeals ruled
Verizon did not have to give customer names to
RIAA
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Huge Jury Judgments Overturned
• Jammie Thomas-Rassert
– Federal jury ordered her to pay $1.92 million
– Damages reduced to $54,000
• Joel Tenenbaum
– Jury ordered him to pay $675,000
– Judge reduced award to $67,500
• Does RIAA have to prove someone actually copied the
songs that people made available on Kazaa?
– New York decision: No
– Massachusetts, Arizona decisions: Yes
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MGM v. Grokster
• Entertainment industry interests sued Grokster
and StreamCast for the copyright infringements
of their users
• Lower courts
– Ruled in favor of Grokster and StreamCast
– Cited Sony v. Universal City Studios as a precedent
• U.S. Supreme Court
– Reversed the lower court ruling in June 2005
– Proper precedent Gershwin Publishing v. Columbia
Artists
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Legal Action Against The Pirate Bay
• The Pirate Bay started in Stockholm, Sweden
• One of world’s biggest BitTorrent file-sharing sites
• People download songs, movies, TV shows, etc.
• After 2006 raid by police, popularity increased
• In 2008 the International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry sued four individuals connected with site
• Defendants said The Pirate Bay just a search engine
• Found guilty; sentence to prison and fined $6.5 million
• Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay still operational
• More than 150 proxy servers all over the world
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PRO-IP Act
• Gives federal law enforcement agencies
right to seize domain names of sites
facilitating copyright infringement
• Operation In Our Sites (2010)
– Seized domain names of 10 Web sites making
available full-run movies
– Seized several hundred more domain names
over next 1 ½ years
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Megaupload Shutdown
• Megaupload a prominent cyberlocker
– More than 180 million registered users
– Once world’s 13th most popular Web site
– Source of movies, TV shows, songs, games
• FBI used PRO-IP Act to shut down
Megaupload (January 2012)
• FileSonic and FileServe responded by
disabling sharing functionality
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Legal Music Services on the Internet
• Subscription services for legal downloading
• Some based on monthly fee; some free
• Consumers pay for each download
• Apple’s iTunes Music Store leading service,
surpassing WalMart as top music retailer in
United States
• Still, illegal downloading far more popular than
legal music services
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4.7 Protections for Software
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Software Copyrights
• Copyright protection began 1964
• What gets copyrighted?
– Expression of idea, not idea itself
– Object program, not source program
• Companies treat source code as a trade
secret
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Violations of Software Copyrights
• Copying a program to give or sell to
someone else
• Preloading a program onto the hard disk of
a computer being sold
• Distributing a program over the Internet
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Important Court Cases
• Apple Computer v. Franklin Computer
– Established that object programs are
copyrightable
• Sega v. Accolate
– Established that disassembling object code to
determine technical specifications is fair use
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Safe Software Development
• Reverse engineering okay
• Companies must protect against
unconscious copying
• Solution: “clean room” software
development strategy
– Team 1 analyzes competitor’s program and
writes specification
– Team 2 uses specification to develop software
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Software Patents (1/3)
• Until 1981, Patent Office refused to
grant software patents
– Saw programs as mathematical algorithms,
not processes or machines
• U.S. Supreme Court decision led to first
software patent in 1981
• Further court rulings led to patents
being granted for wider range of
software
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Software Patents (2/3)
• Thousands of software patents now exist
– Microsoft files ~3,000 applications annually
– Licensing patents a source of revenue
• Secondary market for software patents
– Patent trolls: Companies that specialize in buying
patents and enforcing patent rights
– Companies would rather settle out of court than spend
time and money going to trial
– RIM didn’t settle quickly; ended up paying $612 million
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Software Patents (3/3)
• Critics say too many patents have been issued
– Patent Office doesn’t know about prior art, so it issues
bad software patents
– Obvious inventions get patents
• Companies with new products fear getting sued
for patent infringement
– Build stockpiles of patents as defense mechanism
– Software patents used as legal weapons
• Bezos: software patents should expire in 3-5
years
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Key Differences between Software
Copyrights and Software Patents
Software Copyright Software Patent
What is protected? Object Program, Software process
screen displays with practical utility
Is getting protection expensive? No Yes
Is getting protection time consuming? No Yes
Is reverse engineering allowed? Yes No
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4.8 Open-Source Software
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Criticisms of Proprietary Software
• Increasingly harsh measures being taken
to enforce copyrights
• Copyrights are not serving their purpose of
promoting progress
• It is wrong to allow someone to “own” a
piece of intellectual property
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Open-Source Definition
• No restrictions preventing others from selling or
giving away software
• Source code included in distribution
• No restrictions preventing others from modifying
source code
• No restrictions regarding how people can use
software
• Same rights apply to everyone receiving
redistributions of the software (copyleft)
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Beneficial Consequences of Open-
Source Software
• Gives everyone opportunity to improve program
• New versions of programs appear more
frequently
• Eliminates tension between obeying law and
helping others
• Programs belong to entire community
• Shifts focus from manufacturing to service
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Examples of Open-Source Software
• BIND
• Apache
• Sendmail
• Android operating system for smartphones
• Firefox and Chrome
• OpenOffice.org
• Perl, Python, Ruby, TCL/TK, PHP, Zope
• GNU compilers for C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Java,
and Ada
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Screenshot from OpenOffice.org, a registered trademark of Apache Software Foundation.
Copyright © 2012 by Apache Software Foundation. Reprinted with permission.
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GNU Project and Linux
• GNU Project
– Begun by Richard Stallman in 1984
– Goal: Develop open-source, Unix-like operating
system
– Most components developed in late 1980s
• Linux
– Linus Torvalds wrote Unix-like kernel in 1991
– Combined with GNU components to make an O.S.
– Commonly called Linux
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Impact of Open-Source Software
• Linux an alternative to proprietary versions
of Unix
• Linux operating system on 95% of the
world’s 500 fastest supercomputers
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Critique of the Open-Source
Software Movement
• Without critical mass of developers, quality can
be poor
• Without an “owner,” incompatible versions may
arise
• Relatively weak graphical user interface
• Poor mechanism for stimulating innovation (no
companies will spend billions on new programs)
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4.9 Legitimacy of Intellectual
Property Protection for Software
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Do We Have the Right System in Place?
• Software licenses typically prevent you
from making copies of software to sell or
give away
• Software licenses are legal agreements
• Not discussing morality of breaking the law
• Discussing whether society should give
intellectual property protection to software
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Rights-based Analysis
• “Just deserts” argument
– Programming is hard work that only a few can do
– Programmers should be rewarded for their labor
– They ought to be able to own their programs
• Criticism of “just deserts” argument
– Why does labor imply ownership?
– Can imagine a just society in which all labor went
to common good
– Intellectual property not like physical property
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A Consequentialist Argument Why
Software Copying Is Bad
Beth Anderson
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Utilitarian Analysis
• Argument against copying
– Copying software reduces software purchases…
– Leading to less income for software makers…
– Leading to lower production of new software…
– Leading to fewer benefits to society
• Each of these claims can be debated
– Not all who get free copies can afford to buy software
– Open-source movement demonstrates many people
are willing to donate their software-writing skills
– Hardware industry wants to stimulate software industry
– Difficult to quantify how much society would be harmed
if certain software packages not released 1-42
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Conclusion
• Natural rights argument weak
• Utilitarian argument not strong, either
• Nevertheless, society has granted
copyright protection to owners of computer
programs
• Breaking the law is wrong unless there is a
strong overriding moral obligation or
consequence
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4.10 Creative Commons
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Streamlining Creative Re-use
• Under current copyright law, eligible works
are copyrighted the moment they are created
• No copyright notice does not mean it’s okay
to copy
• Must contact people before using work
• That slows down creative re-use
• Free Creative Commons license indicates
– Which kinds of copying are okay
– Which rights are being retained
• Flickr and Magnatune two well-known sites
using Creative Commons licenses
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Screenshot from Creative Commons. Copyright © 2011 by Creative Commons. Reprinted with permission. 1-46
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