Related papers: Section 108 and Software Collections, A User's Gui…
In computational science and in computer science, research software is a central asset for research. Computational science is the application of computer science and software engineering principles to solving scientific problems, whereas…
Machine-generated artworks are now part of the contemporary art scene: they are attracting significant investments and they are presented in exhibitions together with those created by human artists. These artworks are mainly based on…
The widespread adoption of open source libraries and frameworks can be attributed to their licensing. Open Source Software Licenses (OSS licenses) ensure that software can be sold or distributed as part of aggregate programs from various…
Copyright in the cultural sphere can act as a barrier to the dissemination of high-quality information. On the other hand it protects works of art that might not be made available otherwise. This dichotomy makes the area of copyright…
Publicly available datasets are one of the key drivers for commercial AI software. The use of publicly available datasets is governed by dataset licenses. These dataset licenses outline the rights one is entitled to on a given dataset and…
Most modern software products incorporate open source components, which requires compliance with each component's licenses. As noncompliance can lead to significant repercussions, organizations often seek advice from legal practitioners to…
This document explains the basic concepts related to software and hardware licenses, and it summarizes the most popular licenses that are currently used for hardware projects. Two case studies of hardware projects at different levels of…
This paper summarizes the current copyright related risks that Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems (including Large Language Models --LLMs) incur. These risks affect different stakeholders: owners of the copyright…
Software Heritage is the largest public archive of software source code and associated development history, as captured by modern version control systems. As of July 2023, it has archived more than 16 billion unique source code files coming…
Language models may memorize more than just facts, including entire chunks of texts seen during training. Fair use exemptions to copyright laws typically allow for limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright…
There is substantial evidence that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms can generate bias against minorities, women, and other protected classes. Federal and state laws have been enacted to protect consumers…
One common task of developing or maintaining software is searching the source code for information like specific method calls or write accesses to certain fields. This kind of information is required to correctly implement new features and…
Background: The company-internal reuse of software components owned by organizational units in different countries constitutes an implicit licensing across borders, which is taxable. This makes tax authorities a less known stakeholder in…
Software is a central part of modern science, and knowledge of its use is crucial for the scientific community with respect to reproducibility and attribution of its developers. Several studies have investigated in-text mentions of software…
Context: When software is released publicly, it is common to include with it either the full text of the license or licenses under which it is published, or a detailed reference to them. Therefore public licenses, including FOSS (free, open…
Context: Privacy legislation has impacted the way software systems are developed, prompting practitioners to update their implementations. Specifically, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy…
As computer systems become more and more complex, software and tools lag more and more behind. This is especially true for scientific software that often demands high performance, and thus needs to take advantage of parallelisms, memory…
A central notion in U.S. copyright law is judging the substantial similarity between an original and an (allegedly) derived work. Capturing this notion has proven elusive, and the many approaches offered by case law and legal scholarship…
In the age of algorithms, I focus on the question of how to ensure algorithms that will take over many of our familiar archival and library tasks, will behave according to human ethical norms that have evolved over many years. I start by…
The rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence systems ("AI systems") has created unprecedented social engagement. AI code generation systems provide responses (output) to questions or requests by accessing the vast library of open-source…