PHIL 112 Lecture 3: Software Ownership
Document Summary
Intellectual property is any unique product of the human intellect that potentially has commercial value. The intellectual property is the idea or words on the page, not the speci c pages it is written on. Should computer software be intellectual property? what protections, if any, should exist for computer software. The locken theory everyone has a right to their own persons and their own labor. When someone mixes his/her labor with some natural resource, that resource becomes one"s property. Uniqueness: allowing for ownership of intellectual property seems to result in the paradox that more than one person has exclusive ownership rights to a single unique piece of property. Copying/stealing: counting ip as property seems to force us to call things. Stealing that might not really seem to be stealing, Bene t: pro t potential and incentives for inventors, who must take the risk of committing time and resources to the development of new products.