Legally Speaking: S. 314 - The Communications Decency Act and Cyberspace

Legally Speaking: Ibm' S Pragmatic Embrace of Open Source

Twenty years ago, IBM Corp. was the most vigorous advocate of (very) “strong” intellectual property (IP) rights for computer programs. Without strong copyright protection for programs, IBM contended, there would be insufficient incentives for firms to invest in software development. IBM’s executives and lawyers asserted that (1) copyright law protected program code from copying and redistributi...

Would a "right of reply" f ix Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act?

legally Speaking Do you Own the Software you Buy ?

ions and all aspects of recon gurable technology including platforms, programming environments and application successes. www.acm.org/trets www.acm.org/subscribe

Legally Speaking: Did Mgm Really Win the Grokster Case?

MGM’s media blitz has given the impression that the entertainment industry won an overwhelming and broad victory against peer to peer (p2p) file sharing and file sharing technologies when the Supreme Court announced its decision in the MGM v. Grokster case on June 27, 2005. MGM can, of course, point to the 9-0 vote that vacated the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that Grokster could no...

Legally Speaking: Why Reform the U.S. Patent System?

Computing professionals have been complaining for years about “bad” software and Internet-related patents. Now there’s something they can do about it: Support reforms of the U.S. patent system recommended in three recent high profile reports—one issued by the Federal Trade Commission, one by the National Academy of Sciences, and one by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [1, 3, 5]. One short c...