douglas@ms.uky.edu (John Douglas Turner) (02/27/90)
Has anyone seen a course taught to CS majors at BS,MS or PhD level conserning
Computers and the Law?
If so what topics were taught, if not what topics do you think need to be
stressed in such a course?
This course could simply be a seminar course about patents, copyrights,
ethical uses and abuses of computers, and maybe AI.
john....
--
John Douglas Turner douglas@ms.uky.edu or douglas@UKMA.BITNET
University of Kentucky {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!douglas
902 Patterson Office Tower (606)-257-6824
Lexington, Ky. 40502 perlman@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Gary Perlman) (03/01/90)
In article <14340@s.ms.uky.edu> douglas@ms.uky.edu (John Douglas Turner) writes: >Has anyone seen a course taught to CS majors at BS,MS or PhD level conserning >Computers and the Law? > >John Douglas Turner douglas@ms.uky.edu or douglas@UKMA.BITNET >University of Kentucky {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!douglas In my software engineering class, I begin with this important topic. The ethical aspects of intellectual property protection (both from developer and employer points of view), those of liability, and those of contracts, are issues about which students should be exposed. They also help motivate many procedures in software engineering, such as quality assurance, better than most approaches. In my course, I devote two hours of lectures to intellectual property protection (copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret), liability and warranty, and contracts (personal service, work for hire, etc.). It is an approach that would make a lawyer wince, because they devote series of courses to each of these topics, but I am not a lawyer. I introduce each topic with ethical dilemmas. For example, in copyrights, I ask if it is okay for the students to "share" copies a "really fun game" but then ask them if it is okay for others to "share" a program that they wrote; then I explain their inconsistency. In liability, I ask them if they should be held responsible for damages caused by a "tiny little bug" in software they wrote, but then ask them if they think they should be compensated if their word-processor trashes their disk. I hesitate to say that you could get more detail on what I cover by asking for a copy of my troff-slide lecture notes. At te Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, there is a curriculum development project in which modules survey the content and bibliography needed to put together courses on subjects related to software engineering. There are two or three modules covering aspects of software law. You can get information about them by writing to: Dr. Norman Gibbs Director of Education Software Engineering Institute Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 gibbs@sei.cmu.edu You also might want to look at the CACM over the past two years. Pamela Samuelson has written several cogent articles on intellectual property and software. She has also worked on the SEI modules. UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. :-) -- Name: Gary Perlman | Computer and Information Science Department Email: perlman@cis.ohio-state.edu | Ohio State University, 228 Bolz Hall Phone: 614-292-2566 | 2036 Neil Avenue Mall Fax: 614-292-9021 | Columbus, OH 43210-1277 USA