This article reports an undergraduate software engineering project in which, over a period of 2 years, four student teams from different cohorts developed a note-taking app for four academic clients at the students' own university. We investigated how projects involving internal clients can give students the benefits of engaging in real software…

Examines legal issues important to the library and information sector of the European Union. Discusses European Commission directives on length of copyright term, software, renting and lending, and database copyright. Reports on the Magill case on copyright in, and abuse of dominant position by, the copyright owners of television listings.…

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of copyright law as it relates to computer software. The computer industry terminology, case law, and software protection by patents and trade secret legislation are examined, and it is argued that the protection of ownership rights of computer software poses major challenges to existing U.S.…

The product of a detailed study of university copyright policies in Association of Research (ARL) Libraries, this System and Procedures Exchange Center (SPEC) flyer/kit approaches copyright use and ownership policies from the viewpoint of university administrations as well as libraries. A brief introduction discusses policies on use and ownership…

Discusses legal issues involved in developing and distributing multimedia publications. Examines libel; rights of publicity; and such elements of copyright law as copyright protections and infringements, fair use and public domain policies, and use of ideas and factual materials. Uses a hypothetical multimedia project to illustrate the legal rules…

The legal system of copyright may have worked in the era of print, but with electronic technology, society needs less encumbered and cheaper access to expressed ideas. Economic success will go to those nations that best succeed in promoting creativity without inhibiting the incorporation of expressed ideas into other products. (MLW)

Discusses the Copyright Act, four factors that courts must consider in determining permission by the "fair use" doctrine, and the educational exemption for using copyrighted software. Suggests that the best strategy in determining fair use is to contact the publisher, as well as requesting guidelines from the United States Copyright Office. (AEF)

A series of changes in intellectual property law over the last 30 years has made it more difficult for researchers, scientists, authors, and artists to cooperate and collaborate on critically important projects. At the same time, the advance of communications technologies, specifically the Internet, promises to foster an explosion in creativity,…

Copyright law, together with the market logic it carries, penetrates deeply into our daily life. The copyright regime is so restrictive that it turns a normal learning process into a series of potential copyright violations. The Free Software Movement (FSM) represents a substantial community effort to counter this trend. It seeks to supersede the…

Nearly every academic practice is being transformed by information technology. The concept of "piracy," or "theft," presumes that ideas can still be treated as if they are property, and if so, that the rules controlling the movement of idea-properties can be enforced. (MLW)

Guidelines for the fair use of videotapes and computer software in library and classroom situations under the Copyright Revision Act of 1976 cover the areas of reproduction, adaptation, distribution, public performance, and display. Several hypothetical situations are presented to explain the legal responsibility of the library. (CLB)

This article addresses concerns about the role of education policy in the context of knowledge-related public policy. Specifically, it raises concerns about how the technocratic and anti-social tendencies already observed in knowledge-related policy discourse may adversely influence the intellectual and cultural life of communities. A key goal of…