Intellectual Property

Part of: Impact of Computing

Owning Ideas and Creations. Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, software, music, writing, designs, that are legally owned by their creators. Copyright automatically protects original works the moment they are fixed in a tangible form, and others generally need permission to copy or reuse them. Licenses Grant Permission. Because asking each creator is impractical, licenses spell out how a work may be used in advance: - Creative Commons (CC) : a family of licenses letting creators allow reuse under conditions (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike). - Open source : software released with a license permitting others to view, modify, and share the code. - Public domain : works with no copyright, free for anyone to use. Fair Use and Attribution. Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted material without permission for purposes like commentary, education, or parody. Even when reuse is allowed, attribution (crediting the creator) is often required and is always good practice. What usually goes wrong. What you see What caused it How to fix it --- --- --- You say a work has no copyright because it shows no notice protection was assumed to require a filing or a sy

Challenge: License Checker