Legal and Ethical Concerns
Essential Knowledge
- IOC-1.F.1 Material created on a computer is the intellectual property of the creator or an organization.
- IOC-1.F.2 Ease of access and distribution of digitized information raises intellectual property concerns regarding ownership, value, and use.
- IOC-1.F.3 Measures should be taken to safeguard intellectual property.
- IOC-1.F.4 The use of material created by someone else without permission and presented as one’s own is plagiarism and may have legal consequences.
- IOC-1.F.6 The use of material created by someone other than you should always be cited.
- IOC-1.F.7 Creative Commons, open source, and open access have enabled broad access to digital information.
- IOC-1.F.8 As with any technology or medium, using computing to harm individuals or groups of people raises legal and ethical concerns.
- IOC-1.F.9 Computing can play a role in social and political issues, which in turn often raises legal and ethical concerns.
What is intellectual property?
Intellectual property is a work or invention that is the result of creativity, to which one has rights over.
In the modernized world today, intellectual property can be shared more easily now through the Internet. This raises concerns about who owns something that was created digitally.
Copyright
Copyright protects your IP and keeps anyone else from using it, unless they have permission. Anything you create like a picture u took or a digital drawing, you automatically own an “All rights reserved” copyright. If we pretend that material is our own then it becomes plagiarism
There are ways to create material for others to use:
Creative Commons
- Provides free licenses that you can use to tell others how you want them to use your creation
- Examples: If you draw a picture and you want other people to use and distribute it without asking for permission. If you have a song that you want to freely share
- It clearly outlines whether certain people can use it for creative commons, whether it’s commercial or for another reason
Open Source
- Are open for anyone to use and the IP can modified in whatever ways people want, thus encouraging open collaboration
- Refers exclusively to software
Open Access
- Online research output free of any restrictions (like copyright or licesnse restrictions) and free of use so people can use this however they wish
- Example: Open access databases with journals and research papers for others to reference and use
Popcorn Hack 1
- Give an example of an open source software and explain why it is an open source.
Linux is open source becuase the code is accesible to everyone.
Legal/Ethical Concerns
No matter how you use something, it’s still important to cite information and give credit where it belongs. There is so information at our fingertips and though open source programs may be created with good intentions, people will sometimes use these open sources and modify them to harm individuals or groups.
There are legal concerns regarding computing devices that collect and analyze data by monitoring individual activity. Digital media downloads can sometimes include viruses and harmful programs
Digital Divide and Bias
Some softwares may include algorithms with bias. The training data for the software might underrepresent certain groups or demographics. Lack of fairness in algorithmic decision-making can perpetuate societal inequalities.
The digital divide is the unequal distribution of access to technology Although the Internet provides all these resources for us to use, certain groups of people do not have the technology readily available for them to use. These databases and online resources are only beneficial to those who have the opportunities and privileges to understand and access technology.
Popcorn Hack 2
- What is another legal or ethical concern regarding intellectual property in technology?
Plagiarism. Anybody can take something from someone else off the internet and claim that it belongs to them.
Homework
Complete these five free response questions and send them to Taj on slack by December 21, 11:59 pm. You will be graded on how much effort you put into your answer.
- What is the difference between open source and open access?
| Open Source | Open Access |
|---|---|
| Code is available for the public to access, you can even modify and distribute it. | Accessibility of more scholarly articles such as research articles, etc. |
| Examples: Linux, Firefox | Examples: Free access journals, most non-profit websites |
- What is the importance of copyright?
Copyright is important because it protects people’s property from being used illegally without their permission. This prevents things like plagiarism and gives the creator of the copyrighted item sole ownership (unless otherwise stated) so that nobody else can make proffits from it. At times it can also be used for multiple things such as preserving cultural heritage.
- What is a way people can harm individuals or groups through open source data?
They can use open source data for their own good by disguising it as something helpful and putting viruses or malware in it. Additionally, the ability to edit open source data could lead to people spreading misinformation on open source platforms in order to push a personal agenda.
- What term describes the uequal distribution of access to technology?
Digital divide
- How do you see intellectual property in 20 years (be creative)?
I think intellectual property will have a lot more legal implications and there will be a lot more things that people can own. With the recent development of NFTs, it shows that people will have the drive to own almost anything, even pictures. I think that in the future there might be copyrights on usage of certain phrases and maybe even ideas that might not be possible to execute with the given technology (for example nobody except one company is allowed to invent things like time machines. They haven’t been invented yet but nobody else is allowed to invent it other than the company that copyrighted the idea.). These are just examples to explain the extent to which I believe intellectual property will be protected