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| Re: Halo Ripping and "Intellectual Property"... | |
| Posted By: kapowaz <halo.bungie.org@kapowaz.net> | Date: 5/16/05 10:04 a.m. |
In Response To: Re: Halo Ripping and "Intellectual Property"... (Captain Spark) And to answer your specific questions. What would you do if you spent millions of dollars developing a software application and an employee decided to post the source code on the Internet? I would fire that employee for breach of contract (assuming his contract forbade such a thing, which most software development companies' contracts do), then try and limit the damage where possible, although at that point it is fair to assume that your work is in the public domain - albeit illegally. What would happen if your competition downloaded your source code, that you spent millions of dollars developing, and released the software....as their own. Isn't that a "intellectual property violation" ? This highlights the success that big business has had at pulling the wool over the eyes of the consumer, in fooling us into believing that such a concept exists as one thing. No, it's not an intellectual property violation; it's copyright violation, as the code would have been the copyrighted works of the company the employee worked for. If you want examples of where such cases have gone through the courts, look at those where companies have downloaded GPL-licensed code and then released it as their own (or as a part of their own product). These are the closest real world cases I can think of. It is unlikely that their downloading this code would have any trademark implications (unless said company decided to steal the name intended for the software as well as the code; highly unlikely) and arguably it wouldn't be a patent violation either (although legislation being passed might make this an inevitabile addition, as software patents become a reality). Regardless, this all feels like a bit of a digression. How does this relate to the subject I first started discussing? | |
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