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Saturday, October 3, 2015

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Intellectual property rights are the legal rights to which the creators of intellectual
property—original creative works—are entitled. Intellectual property rights indicate
who has the right to use, perform, or display a creative work and what can legally be
done with that work. In addition, intellectual property rights determine how long the
creator retains rights to the property and other related restrictions. Examples of intellectual
property include music and movies; paintings, computer graphics, and other works
of art; poetry, books, and other types of written works; symbols, names, and designs
used in conjunction with a business; architectural drawings; and inventions. Intellectual
property rights can be claimed by individuals or by companies or other organizations.
The three main types of intellectual property rights are copyrights, trademarks, and
patents. Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are issued by individual countries.

"Intellectual property rights. The legal rights to which creators of original creative works (such as artistic or literary works, inventions, corporate logos, and more) are entitled."

                                                            Trademarks

Trademarks

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design (or a combination of words, phrases,
symbols, or designs) that identifies and distinguishes one product or service from another.
A trademark used to identify a service is also called a service mark. Trademarks that are claimed
but not registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can use the mark ™;
non-registered service marks can use the symbol SM. The symbol ® is reserved for registered
trademarks and service marks. Trademarks for products usually appear on the product packaging
with the appropriate trademark symbol; service marks are typically used in the advertising of a service because there is no product on which the mark can be printed. Trademarked words and phrases—such as iPod®, Chicken McNuggets®, Google Docs™, and FedEx OfficeSM—are widely used today. Trademarked logos are also common. Trademarks last 10 years, but they can be
renewed as many times as desired, as long as they are being used in commerce.
 In addition to protecting the actual trademarked words, phrases, or logos,
trademark law also protects domain names that match a company’s trademark,

such as Amazon.com and Lego.com. There have been a number of claims of online trademark infringement in recent years, particularly those involving domain names
that contain, or are similar to, a trademark. For instance, several celebrities—such as
Madonna and Tracy Morgan—have fought to be given the exclusive right to use what they
consider their rightful domain names (Madonna.com and TracyMorgan.com, respectively).
Other examples include Twitter’s complaint against an organization using the domain
name twitter.org, RadioShack’s objection to a private individual using shack.com for the
Web site of his design business, and Microsoft being accused by British Sky Broadcasting
Group of trademark infringement with its SkyDrive service.

New Applications for Digital Watermarking


New Applications for Digital Watermarking

While digital watermarks are still used to identify and help protect
digital content from misuse, new applications for this technology
are emerging. One such technology is Digimarc Discover™, which
enables your mobile device to recognize media (such as newspapers,
magazines, product packaging, television shows, and music)
in your immediate surroundings to provide you with online content
linked to that media, such as downloading a coupon for a product
shown in a magazine ad, viewing a video related to a magazine
article, displaying pricing and product information corresponding
to a product’s packaging, and viewing band information for the
song currently being played over a restaurant’s sound system.

Available as a mobile app for smartphones and other mobile
devices, Digimarc Discover uses your phone’s camera and
microphone to “look and listen” to surrounding media. An app
recognizes the digital watermarks embedded in the media, and
then the appropriate options for the available online content and
services are displayed on the phone (such as a virtual tour of the
Colosseum, historical photos and other information, or prices for
upcoming flights to Rome).

This emerging digital watermarking application enables publishers,
advertising agencies, and other companies to make a
variety of rich media available to customers without having to
give up valuable space in print publications or product packaging
(as is required with a QR code or other code that needs to be
displayed on the printed media in order to be functional).

                         Patents

Patents

Unlike copyrights (which protect artistic and literary works) and
trademarks (which protect a company’s logo and brand names),
a patent protects inventions by granting exclusive rights of an
invention to its inventor for a period of 20 years. A patented invention
is typically a unique product, but it can also be a process or
procedure that provides a new way of doing something or that
offers a new technical solution to a problem. Like trademarks,
U.S. patents are issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO).

                            ETHICS

ETHICS
The term ethics refers to standards of moral
conduct. For example, telling the truth is a
matter of ethics. An unethical act is not always
illegal, although it might be, but an illegal act
is usually viewed as unethical by most people.
For example, purposely lying to a friend
is unethical but usually not illegal, while
perjuring oneself in a courtroom as a witness
is both illegal and unethical. Whether or not
criminal behavior is involved, ethics guide our
behavior and play an integral role in our lives.

If a person finds a lost device (such as a USB
flash drive), is it ethical to look at the contents
in order to try to determine its owner?

          Virtual Currency—Real or Not?

Virtual Currency—Real or Not?

One issue surrounding the growing use of digital currency is
whether or not it is a real currency and, as such, is subject to existing
laws. For instance, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
is considering whether virtual currency (such as Bitcoin) should be
subject to its rules and Bitcoin and several online payment entities
(including mobile payment processor Square) were issued cease
and desist letters from states for failing to have proper licensing for
money transmission. However, a federal judge may have ended the
controversy in 2013 with an opinion issued in a fraud case related to
a Bitcoin-based Ponzi scheme worth millions of dollars. The defendant
challenged the fraud charges on the basis that Bitcoins do not
meet the definition of currency—the judge disagreed and ruled that
Bitcoin is a currency or form of money, in the same way that gold and
silver are commodities that are recognized as money.

Types of virtual currency
Another issue is the taxability of virtual profits. When virtual
goods are cashed out for actual cash, it’s clear that the profits
should be reported as taxable income. But what about taxing virtual
profits that never leave the virtual world? This issue is complicated
by the fact that goods or services obtained through barter
or as prizes are taxable in the United States under current law,
and the fact that virtual transactions have real-world value. While
the IRS has not yet specifically addressed the issue of whether
or not virtual income is taxable in the United States before it is
exchanged for real-life money and/or for goods or services, the
issue is being looked into. Some countries have already made
that decision, such as Australia, which implemented taxes on virtual
income in late 2006, and South Korea, which has a value added
tax (VAT ) on individuals with virtual income over a certain
amount. Whether the United States and other countries will follow
suit remains to be seen.

Bitcoins
These physical Bitcoins each have a unique code that can be used to retrieve virtual Bitcoins online.
                                                                    Music

Music

There have been many issues regarding the legal and ethical use of music over the past
few years. The controversy started with the emergence and widespread use of Napster
(the first P2P music sharing site that facilitated the exchange of music files from one
Napster user’s computer to another). Many exchanges via the original Napster service
violated copyright law and a flood of lawsuits from the music industry eventually shut
down Napster and other P2P sites that were being used to exchange copyright-protected
content illegally. Additional issues arose with the introduction of record-able and rewrite-able
CD and DVD drives, portable digital media players, mobile phones, and other
devices that can be used to duplicate digital music. Some issues regarding the legal and
ethical use of digital music have been resolved over the years. For instance, downloading
a music file from a P2P site without compensating the artist and record label is a
violation of copyright law and an unethical act; so is transferring legally obtained songs
to a storage medium to sell or give to others. Today’s wide availability of music stores
and other online sources for legal music downloads and streaming give individuals a legal alternative for obtaining digital music quickly and easily.
 However, illegal music exchanges are still taking place and law enforcement
agencies, as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), are pursuing
individuals who violate music copyrights. For instance, the RIAA won its first
lawsuit against an individual in late 2007 when a young woman was found guilty of
sharing music online and was ordered to pay a total of $222,000 to record companies.
At a new trial in 2009, the verdict was the same but the award was increased to
$1.92 million—$80,000 per downloaded song.

How can an individual know if music or movies
available via the Internet are legal to download?

Distribution of copyrighted works (including music
and movies) without permission from the copyright
owners is illegal. The best way to determine whether
music available for download is authorized is to
evaluate the source—is the Web site from which you
want to download the music reputable? What do
the terms of use state? If the Web site has a license
from the copyright owner to distribute the musical
content, the copyright owner is likely being paid and
the download is legal. A good legitimacy test is if
you either have to pay a fee or view advertisements
in order to obtain the music. If the Web site appears
to be “too good to be true,” there is a strong likelihood
that it is not authorized to distribute the music
and you could be held personally liable for copyright
infringement.

                             Movies
Movies

Since 1984, when Disney and Universal sued Sony to stop production of the Betamax (the first personal VCR), concern about movie piracy has increased dramatically. The law-suit was eventually decided in Sony’s favor—the Supreme Court upheld the consumers’ rights to record shows for convenience (called time shifting), as long as it was for personal use. As a result of this decision, VCR use became common place. Interestingly, in direct contrast to the views held by the entertainment industry in 1984, videos have been credited with boosting Hollywood’s revenues tremendously over the years. Nevertheless, the entertainment industry continues to be concerned about the ability of consumers to make copies of movies—especially today, because digital content can be duplicated an unlimited number of times without losing quality. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) estimates that losses due to movie piracy worldwide exceed $18 billion per year.  

                                                 Digital Copy Movies

Digital Copy Movies

Did you ever want to take a copy of a DVD movie you own with
you on your portable digital media player or smartphone but
didn’t want to pay to download a second digital copy of the
movie? Well, now you can, with Digital Copy.

A growing trend in movie delivery available from most
major movie studios (including Twentieth Century Fox, Warner
Brothers, Sony Pictures, and Disney), Digital Copy allows
individuals who purchase a DVD or Blu-Ray Disc movie that
supports Digital Copy to copy the movie to both a computer
and a mobile device, such as a portable digital media player,
media tablet, or smartphone (some also allow you to copy
to a specific gaming device, such as a Sony PSP for Sony
Digital Copy movies). The DVD package typically includes
two discs—a conventional DVD disc containing the movie
that can be played in a computer DVD drive or a DVD player
as usual, and a Digital Copy disc that can be used to install
the movie on a computer and mobile device. Some Digital
Copy movies allow you to download the digital copy instead
of using a disc.

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