As we have seen there are many significant social and ethical issues that need to be considered by those in the business of creating and distributing software.
In this section, we consider a range of significant legal case studies both within Australia and
also internationally.
Software implemented on systems throughout a country (or throughout many countries) can result in significant legal action if the software contravenes the law of the country in some way or its development does not comply with the legal contract between the software developer and the customer.
The legal action may be the result of copyright breaches or can arise when software does not perform as intended.
Students Learn About: Legal implications
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Case Studies
National Cases:- RACV vs Unisys:
- (The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria) sued an IT services company by the name of Unisys over a contract promising to deliver a document and workflow management system designed to access online claims with a response time of 2-4 seconds.
- The system was delivered, but had response times of 20-40 seconds instead, though Unisys promised times of 2-4 seconds.
- The system was re-engineered several times, but the system still didn’t meet RACV’s technical requirements.
- RACV originally sued unisys for providing misleading information initially to RACV, and sued for $9 million in damages, but lowered it to $4 million in the process of the case.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/109555/unisys_loses_racv_case/
- Microsoft vs Apple
- Apple computer released the Macintosh operating system with their range of Macintosh Personal Computers.
- This operating system was the first commonly available Graphical User Interface (GUI). Microsoft soon after released Windows, which in many ways looked and felt like the Apple Macintosh operating system.
- Both the Macintosh and Windows systems were distributed globally before any legal action began.
- Apple claimed that Microsoft had stolen their idea.
- After a long, drawn out court battle, a settlement was reached allowing both companies to continue to distribute their GUI operating systems.
- Microsoft vs Netscape:
- Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape’s Navigator were 2 browsers competing for market share in 1999, when Netscape filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft for “anti-competitive conduct”.
- Netscape’s basis for filing the suit revolved around Microsoft’s inclusion of Internet Explorer on the Windows platform, and the way in which this negatively affected Netscape’s market share as Navigator was not used anymore.
- This violated the 1995 consent decree, put in place to make competition between software developers such as Microsoft and Netscape more even.
- The value for which Microsoft was sued is unknown.
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/networks/homeworks/Microsoft_Case.pdf
http://www.pcworld.com/article/80925/aol_sues_microsoft_over_browser_war.html
- NSW T Card system:
- The NSW government wished to implement a non-contact fare payment system for all public transport in the state, and contracted the ERG group to implement the system.
- ERG had lots of problems implementing the system, including the project costing more money than originally agreed upon, and the system containing far too many bugs to be operational.
- After field trials were held, the project was scrapped, and ERG was sued for the $95 million dollars spent on the project.
International Cases:
- Search Engines (Google vs China's national censorship laws)
- China has some of the most restrictive censorship laws in the world.
- Google on the other hand represents itself as being a bastion of free speech and free press.
- It was therefore somewhat inevitable that a Google search engine located in China would cause issues for both the Chinese Government and Google.
- Google china first began operations in 2005 and in early 2006 google.cn was launched. The results from google.cn searches were filtered and censored to comply with China’s local censorship laws and regulations.
- In early 2009 China blocked access to Google’s YouTube site and in January 2010 a number of US tech companies operating in China claimed to have been hacked.
- Google responded with an announcement that they were no longer willing to censor searches in China and that they may pull out of China altogether.
- On March 23, 2010 Google began redirecting all google.cn searches to Google.com.hk – its Hong Kong search engine. Although Hong Kong is part of China, it is not subject to China’s restrictive censorship laws.
- On March 30. 2010 China banned access to all Google sites. Apparently any attempt to access a Google site resulted in a DNS error. However the ban lasted just 24 hours. The redirection to the uncensored Hong Kong site then continued.
- Google was due to have its licence to operate in China renewed on June 30, 2010.
- When the day came, Google restored its China search engine complete with censorship. They did however include a link to their Hong Kong site. Both Google and the Chinese Government have claimed victory. Complete information is not currently (2011) available, however it would appear Google backed down under pressure that it would be thrown out of China.
Google row exposes China internet censorship laws
China-Google: Search engine censorship row
- Napster vs Metallica (and RIAA)
- Napster was a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing internet service that allowed people to share music without having to purchase an original CD. Napster’s application, once downloaded allowed users to access and download songs that are stored on other users hard drives. Such was the success of Napster that in the first few months, it was estimated that more than 85 million people around the world used the service.
- In 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit on behalf of five major US record labels alleging Napster violated both Federal and State copyright laws and stated that "Napster knowingly and wilfully set out to build a business based on copyright infringement on an unprecedented scale." and in 2000 the heavy metal band Metallica files a similar lawsuit against Napster.
- Napster during their defence argued that they are simply an Internet Service Provider but are also protected by the 1992 Home Recording Act which allows the general public to make a copy of music for personal use.
- The judge disagreed saying the service did violate copyright and issued an injunction to have the site shutdown. The US government also states that Napster’s service falls outside of the definitions of the Home Recording Act.
- Just hours before the site is due to be shut down the US Circuit Court of Appeals issues a stay of the injunction until Napster’s full appeal can be heard. During the appeal Napster’s defence team insist that it is the end-users that are in violation of copyright and not Napster, saying the company only provides the means for users to trade music, which in itself, is not an infringement of copyright.
- In September of 2001, Napster reaches a partial settlement of the lawsuits filed against it and agrees to pay US$26 million to some music publishers and songwriters. Napster also states that it intends to become a subscription-based service with a percentage of royalties being distributed to the copyright owners of the music. Agreement with the major record labels could not be reached however and in 2002 Napster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Upcoming Legal Issues
Australia's Mandatory Metadata Retention Legislation: Everything You Need To Know
The Government has officially introduced a Bill into the House Of Representatives today that would compel ISPs and telcos to store your data for a prescribed amount of time. This is everything you need to know about who will store your data, how long it will be kept for, and who can access it.
Australia's Mandatory Metadata Retention Legislation: Everything You Need To Know- LUKE HOPEWELL 30 OCTOBER 2014 10:30 AM
George Brandis has no clue about meta data
2015 George Brandis is the current Australian Attorney General
https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/security-power-tools/9780596009632/ch01s03.html
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNSWLawJl/2002/41.html
https://lwn.net/Articles/134642/
A fundamental technique used by security researchers is to take a "known product and working backward to divine the process which aided in its development or manufacture."[9] The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has defined reverse engineering in the context of software engineering as:
(1) reading about the program;
(2) observing the program in operation by using it on a computer;
(3) performing a static examination of the individual computer instructions contained within the program; and
(4) performing a dynamic examination of the individual computer instructions as the program is being run on a computer.
Reverse engineering is as standard an industry practice in the computer software industry as in the traditional manufacturing and semiconductor industries.147 Yet, for much of the past two decades, the legality of two common forms of reverse engineering of programs, namely, decompilation and disassembly of object code,148 has been challenged on trade secret, copyright, patent, and contract law theories.
Reverse engineering is as standard an industry practice in the computer software industry as in the traditional manufacturing and semiconductor industries.147 Yet, for much of the past two decades, the legality of two common forms of reverse engineering of programs, namely, decompilation and disassembly of object code,148 has been challenged on trade secret, copyright, patent, and contract law theories.
Reverse engineering software takes compiled code (in machine code) and reverses it back to source code.
Reverse engineering is "the process of discovering the technological principles of a mechanical application through analysis of its structure, function and operation. That involves sometimes taking something apart and analyzing its workings in detail, usually with the intention to construct a new device or program that does the same thing without actually copying anything from the original.
Reverse engineering is used to retrieve source code to see how to replicate functions, also to allow fixing/amending of code to fit with organisation
Unless it is with the express permission of the Author/IPR holder, using reverse engineered code is breaching copyright
According to the Computer World, reverse engineering is commonly used:
As a learning tool
as a way to make new compatible products that are cheaper than what's currently on the market.
for making software interoperate more effectively or to bridge different operating systems or databases.
to uncover the uncoordinated features of commercial products.
There are two basic legalities associated with reverse engineering:
a. Copyright Protection - protects only the look and shape of a product.
b. Patent Protection - protects the the idea behind the functioning of a new product.
Is reverse engineering unethical?
This issue is largely debated and does not seem to have a clear cut answer. The number one argument against reverse engineering is that of intellectual property. If an individual or an organization produces a product or idea, is it ok for others to "disassemble" the product in order to discover the inner workings?