Professional Computing Ethics, Law and Marketing

(Law component)
Scenarios

1. Copyright Ownership Doubts

Christine had been tutoring in a first year Computer Science subject for twelve months when she was asked
to replace the lecturer who had left the department unexpectedly. The material was all available, as the
previous lecturer had provided it, both electronically and with hard copies of all the notes. There was little
time for changes to be made and after all the material was handed to her by the coordinator. There was one
small problem that concerned Christine. During her time as a tutor she had become aware that the material
was identical in part to the material being used at a University nearby. She also knew the previous lecturer
had contact with people at that particular University. Unsure of the exact origin of the material and the
original author Christine decided to use the material for her lectures.

Two years later she handed the material over to another lecturer, Nicholas, who was developing on line
courses. The material would be accessible via the internet. Nicholas was made aware of the situation
regarding the sharing of the lecture material but decided to use the material provided to him, by Christine.
He thought, even though the material was not owned by him, its ownership was sufficiently unclear as to
preclude successful prosecution for breech of copyright.

Should Nicholas use the material for his on line course? Should he at least acknowledge other authors exist,
or say nothing?

2. Ownership of Intellectual Property

Noel was to take over the lecturing of a subject taught in first year Computer Science. The previous lecturer,
Judith, had retired after 10 years of service to the department. The previous semester she had spent on
sabbatical leave. During this time she spent many hours preparing material for a new subject. She used the
University's facilities because the computer at home was out dated and slow; besides, internet access was
more efficient via the computer in her office on campus.

When she retired she did not wish to provide Noel with the material she had prepared during her sabbatical
leave. She claimed that she did all the hard preparation work and why should she hand it over to the staff
who were employed by the University. The head of the department contacted her about the issue and she
told him that she prepared the material and she owned it and had no intention of leaving it behind.

Noel was then faced with preparing the course from scratch, a task that was impossible, given the limited
amount of time before the subject was to be run again. The head of the department instructed Noel to use the
material, as there was an electronic version of it available on the department's server. It was felt that the
University owned the material because it was prepared while Judith was employed by the University.

Should copyright be attributed to Judith, Noel, or the University?

3. Software Copyright

John spent a year working for a large company, Glam Games whose only business was writing code for
popular computer games. He worked long hours and considered himself one of the best programmers
working for the company even though he was one of the most junior employed by them. After a
demonstration of Glam Games wares at a local computer show , John was approached by an enterprising
COSC1146/1147(CS395) Law Scenarios -1- Catherine Zuluaga
young man, Graeme, who was also an extremely competent programmer. His plan was to start up in
competition with the larger firm, Glam Games. He made an offer to John, which included an increase in
salary of $20,000. After all, the overheads for the two would be limited and they felt that they knew the
market well enough to sell their programs successfully with plenty of profits.

John, began working with Graeme and within the first month they had developed two new outstanding
computer games. John accelerated the development by bringing the code for one of the games that he had
been working on whilst employed by Glam Games. Many of the hours of development had been spent
before leaving Glam Games, but he wrote all the code himself and they didn't even know about it. The code
contributed to about 90% of a fully working program. Only, a small amount of work was required before he
and Graeme could put it through all the appropriate tests prior to releasing it.

Who owns copyright on the code developed by John while working for Glam Games? If John owns the
copyright, can Glam Games restrain John from using his code in a competing product?

4. Database Ownership

Julianna, was very ill with a chronic disease that was lowering her quality of life. She had recently opted to
undergo an experimental medical procedure that was both risky and expensive. She spent six months in and
out of hospital undergoing the treatment before she began to see some results. After the ordeal she decided
that her quality of life had improved. She wished to share her story with others who had a similar fate, as she
thought they too may benefit from the treatment.

A cost-effective way of sharing her story would be via the internet using a web site. She would also collect
information about those who were interested enough in the story to visit her site, so she could maintain
communication with them. A local web software development company, Fly.com, was employed to create
the web site and develop a database to store the users' information.

When it came time to discuss the ownership of the database, she and the developer could not come to an
agreement on who should own the data contained in the database. They eventually decided that the actual
database would be owned by Fly.com but the data collected with the personal details of people interested in
the treatment would be owned by Julianna.

Three months later the manager of Fly.com was approached by a drug company that manufactured a
particular drug which could assist people afflicted with the Julianna's illness. He instructed the database
developer to provide him with the personal details of all people who had communicated with Julianna. He
planned to give the details to the drug company in order for them to be approached about undergoing drug
trials with this new medication.

Does Julianna or anyone own the personal information contained in the database? Do the individuals in the
database have a right of privacy that requires their consent before their details are passed to a third party?
Should the individuals have been asked for their consent to be included in the database in the first place?
Would their consent permit their details to be passed on ? Do the answers depend on legal jurisdiction? If
so, is this decided by the geographical location of the database, or the country in which Fly.com or the drug
company is registered?

5. Piracy

Daniel had just moved to a new university and made some new friends. He had decided to make use of his
CD writer to burn copies of games and then sell them to his friends for a small price, much less than buying
the actual game. This was a two win situation as his friends could get the game for much less than the retail
version, and Daniel could earn money from selling the copied CDs.

COSC1146/1147(CS395) Law Scenarios -2- Catherine Zuluaga

Time passed and he had earned quite a lot of money from selling copied CDs. Although he was aware of the
fact that copying and selling games was illegal, he thought that as he was only a small player in the illegal
software market that he wouldn’t have much to worry about. He made sure that he didn’t advertise his
burning business, it just got around by word of mouth, this way it would be harder to be caught by any
authorities. As time passed he earned more and more money by selling copied CDs.

Who is breaking the law, Daniel or the people purchasing the software, or both?
If Daniel is caught and claims that he didn't know it was illegal, where does he stand?

Catherine Zuluaga

COSC1146/1147(CS395) Law Scenarios -3- Catherine Zuluaga