Conference on copyright and software patents
The 8th Annual International Conference organized by Center for Tele-Information, Technical University of Denmark takes place 4-5 December 2003.
The overall topic of the conference concerns open vs. proprietary development paths with respect to content and software production. In spite of the various specificities of the two fields, there is a common ground, and the conference seeks to explore both this common ground and the special features of the two areas.
The most discussed issues in the ICT area have been free downloading of music and software patents. Record companies have witnessed seriously decreasing sales in the past few years.
They claim that free downloading, first from Napster and later on via P2P networks like Kazaa, and CD copying are the reasons for this development.
And, their reaction has been to hit hard down on users of free downloading networks with court cases and demands for tough penalties.
However, new business models taking advantage of the new technological possibilities are also explored.
These business models have been at the center of discussion on open source software and software patents.
It has turned out that there are, in fact, possibilities for software to be developed by a multitude of software developers without copyright and patent protection.
These are some of the issues of the 8th Annual International CTI Conference on 4-5 December 2003
(For more information, see the conference website |