i want to know more about copyrights in the computer world?

Question

any websites would help!!

Answer 1

I posted some links for you below. Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Copyright issues are a very big deal right now. An interesting place to start on content issues is
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/Default883.htm

Something to note is that copyright as it applies to software is different than copyright as it applies to content (from a political perspective).

If, for example, you BUY a cd, the doctrine of fair use permits you to copy it onto all of your playback devices: car player, portable , home system, mp3 portable and so on. The BIG copyright issue here is the MPAA/RIAA/Sony/Apple attack on fair use by requirng you to buy one copy per player both through legal pressures and technology. You can see where this is leading here:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

For software itself, the "one license - one machine" model is widely accepted in law. Some makers allow greater use, such as "only one use at a time" - allowing you to have your stuff on your laptop and on your main system, providing you only use one at a time. This is a variation on the 'site license' model which is based on per-user rather than per-copy concerns.

A third issue crosses the boundary, and is about capability. There is pressure on makers of copying software to restrict what can be copied. This pressure comes from several areas, including the knowledge customers are being fined and even jailed in some countries for using their products and for that reason alone are adding warnings if a user is about to download legally protected material.

File copying is 100% legal. It all depends on what you copy and for what purpose.

One thing to keep in mind is that Patent is not Copyright. These are two very different animals. You patent things, methods and so on, but copyright expression. So a company could patent 'one click shopping' (a method) and at the same time copyright the look and feel of the shopping cart (expression).

Copyright violation is also not theft, and it may involve no loss of income at all. It may or may not result in economic gain for the copier. But copyright draws a line in the sand - if you copy what someone else created, you are piggybacking on someone else's work one way or another. Purpose be dammed - sort it out in court. The system is relatively reasonable in that you can copy bits and pieces for review (and larger bits and pieces with permission) without having a million pages of legalese for lawyers to argue over.

In software, there is a war going on: The GNU GPL license protects software user's rights to copy, modify and use (and even sell) free software, and this is anathema to IP purists who believe everything must be "owned" by a single entity, and money must change hands. To this end, elements of the WTO, WIPO and various content/software organizations campaign for law that marginalizes GNU licenses.