Access regimes for software development –
Copyright and open source from a customer's perspective

Brendan Scott

Wednesday, 6 August 2003

1:00 to 2:00 pm, including 15 minutes for questions

UNSW Law Faculty, Library stage II Tower, Room 1042 (10th floor).
Map: http://www.unsw.edu.au/maps/kensington.pdf
Enter via Gate 11 Botany St Randwick.

Abstract:

This talk centres around some of the design limitations of copyright law as it is applied to software. We will identify and discuss problems with the copyright regime when viewed from a customer's perspective. Brendan argues that copyright, while being an ideal form of market regulation for copyright vendors, is fundamentally anti-customer in its approach and tends to produce sub-optimal outcomes for the acquirers of copyrighted works. Brendan identifies ways in which access regimes can be established by customers to create more customer-friendly legal structures. Open source licensing is examined as an example of such an access regime, and we identify issues for organisations wishing to make their research available on an open source basis.

Slides from the talk.

Brendan Scott is the principal of a niche IT law practice based in Sydney. Brendan provides advice in relation to open source strategies and licensing as well as customer side copyright advocacy, and maintains the OpenSource AU email digest.