Know Your IP Basics

There was a recent blowup between ProgrammingPraxis.com and TheDailyWTF.com that made it near the top on reddit, and while I don't really want to get into the details, some of the comments highlight a general confusion that runs rampant in the software industry over different types of intellectual property :

Brain said
August 13, 2009 at 1:42 PM
Mhhh, I would say its a bit your own fault dude, I mean, I like your blog and I like your praxis. Calling it theft is ridiculous, and we both know that, using two non-copyrighted generic terms as a heading does not qualify as theft. If they would have willingly stolen your content after your collaboration plans collapsed it would be something different. You got the intellectual rights on your work, but not on a generic name!
My 2 cents...

Miksu said
August 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM
You want some cheese with that?

Seriously, the programming praxis is not (AFAIK) a registered trademark and you’re just going to have to suck it up. Maybe I’ll start a programmingpraxis.net domain…

What's wrong with those comments? Well they highlight the how completely off-base developers (I'm assuming the commenters are programmers given the subject matter of the two sites) can be over issues of intellectual property.

And lest you think otherwise - this is a big issue. As developers, Ideally 100% of our time is spent manipulating pieces of IP - let's not get into whether "Property" is the right term or not - and if we're not doing it right we most likely are going to run into problems when our code comes into contact with others, be it in binary or source form.

Going back to the comments, you can't copyright a "generic term", you, in fact, can't copyright terms in general. Copyright is for creative works - and short phrases or terms generally don't apply - although there is a fair amount of debate on what amounts to a creative work. Getting exclusive use of short terms - that is what trademarks are for.

For the second comment - while Miksu is right, it's not a Registered trademark. Trademarks don't need to be registered in order to begin to take effect:

"Like copyrights, trademark property rights arise naturally, with no need for formalities. When you create an expressive work, the copyright immediately applies; when you start to use a distinctive mark, trademark rights automatically apply" (Intellectual Property and Open Source, Van Lindberg p.112)

The claim to the contrary - that all trademarks need to be registered - was made by a number of other commenters. As "Programming Praxis" is a pretty specific term  - As of this writing Google only had 6220 results, most of which mention ProgrammingPraxis.com or TheDailyWTF.com so chances are they could have a pretty solid trademark claim.

As developers we have an obligation to ourselves and our employe(rs/ees) to understand at least the basics of Intellectual property as there are a ton of significant questions that we need to know the answer to if we are going to use other peoples' IP or let others use our IP.

Some issues that come up frequently:

1. Who owns the work that employees do in their off-hours and are those over the top we-own-everything clauses enforceable?
2. Who owns the work that contractors do for your company (contract work is not automatically work for hire )
3. What open-source software can you legally incorporate into your closed-source distributed software?
4. What open-source software can you legally incorporate into your hosted closed-source software-as-a-service software? (Not the same as #3)
5. What open-source software can you legally incorporate into your open-source software released under a different license?
6. What pieces of media and text can you legally incorporate from the web? (Some industries don't give this a second thought )
   
   

For larger companies the lawyers handle this stuff. But some of the smaller companies I've dealt with haven't even given it a second thought. If you are just flying by the seat of your pants regarding your IP chances are there are one or more things that you aren't doing legally. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to blow up in your face, but it certainly could and is the sort of thing that can explode at the wrong time.

There's a great (albeit somewhat dry) book out there called - Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code  that is worth taking a look at if you don't feel like you have a basic footing in IP (It covers the basics of Trademark, Copyright and Patents as well as just Open Source IP). It obviously won't make you a lawyer but at least it'll make you sound knowledgeable enough so some jerk doesn't pick your comment out and write a blog post about it.