RE: programmers rights etc. -- MIDRANGE-L

Title: RE: programmers rights etc.

No because it is intuitive!

-----Original Message-----
From: alan shore [mailto:SHOREA@dime.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 09:51 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: programmers rights etc.

This thread is very interesting, however, how far does one go, for example, if a COBOL program in company A stipulates
READ file-1
AT END GO TO EXIT.
and if a different COBOL program in company B - written by the same programmer at a later date also stipulates
READ file-1
AT END GO TO EXIT.
is this copyright infringement?
This may sound ridiculous, but my point is, a programmer may have a certain style that is used in numerous programs, so that it can even be apparent who wrote the program, just by looking at the coding. How can it be proven that a program was NOT copied, but created from scratch.

I have created many programs that have been copied from another, with a few changes, within the same company, this should be no problem, but if I then create a different program, at a different company, which is almost identical to a program at company A, how can it be proven that copying was NOT involved ?

>>> <Chris.Chambers@v2music.com> 05/24 6:24 AM >>>
The whole subject is best addressed under UK law by a book from the British
Computer Society
entitled Intellectual Property Rights in Software.

Most interestingly it goes thru a number of 'theoretical' legal scenarios which
have never reached court and how they were settled.

The base facts under UK law are that if you are employed to write code as an
employee that code is owned by the employer.

The notion of saving libraries and taking off site is theft. Even print outs
would be theft. Transcription from memory would also probably result in
prosecution if taken to court.

If working as a contractor that code is assumed to be the work of the contractor
unless specified otherwise in the contract signed by both parties.

Please remember if a former employer can show that you have copied code which
was created under their employment (no matter how small that copying is ) you
are breaking copyright law.

Obviously we then come into a very grey area of how one can prove the code was
not copied even if it looks identical.

Cheers,

Chris

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