Legal and Ethical Concerns
Introduced| English | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Intellectual property/ˌɪntəˈlektʃuːəl ˈprɒpəti/ | Rights relating to creations of the mind, such as inventions, written works, designs and distinctive signs. |
| Copyright/ˈkɒpɪraɪt/ | Copyright |
| Creative Commons/kriːˈeɪtɪv ˈkɒmənz/ | A family of public copyright licences permitting specified reuse under stated conditions; not every licence permits commercial use or shared adaptations. |
| Open-source/ˈəʊpən sɔːs/ | Describing software whose source code is available under a licence permitting use, modification and redistribution; it need not be supplied at zero price. |
| privacy/ˈprɪvəsi/ | The ability to control access to personal information and aspects of one's private life. |
| ethics/ˈeθɪks/ | Principles used to judge whether decisions and behaviour are responsible, fair or morally acceptable. |
Rules protect creators
- Digital work is easy to copy, so rules protect the people who make it.
- Intellectual property 知识产权 is the legal ownership of creations of the mind.
- Copyright 版权 automatically gives a creator control over how their work is copied and used.
- You need permission to reuse copyrighted work.
Copyright gives a creator:
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It is automatic legal ownership of the work.
Sharing more freely
- Creators can choose to share more openly.
- A Creative Commons 知识共享 license grants specific permissions in advance — for example, "use my photo if you credit me".
- Open-source 开源 software is released with its code free to use, study, and improve.
- These let others build on your work legally.
A CCTV control room: surveillance systems trade safety gains against privacy 隐私 concerns
Free to reuse, or protected?
Copyright protects a work by default, so reusing it needs permission; Creative Commons and open-source grant permission in advance.
A Creative Commons license lets a creator:
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It states permissions ahead of time.
Software released with its code free to use, study, and improve is ______-source.
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Open-source code can be built upon legally.
Legal vs ethical
- Beyond the law lies ethics 伦理 — what is right, not just what is allowed.
- Using material legally is not always the same as using it ethically.
- Collecting and using people's personal data can raise ethical concerns even when legal.
- A responsible developer respects privacy.
If a use of data is legal, it is always ethical.
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False. Legal and ethical are not the same: some legal uses of data still raise ethical concerns, such as privacy.
For a school website, the best choice is a Creative Commons attribution photo and:
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Crediting the author respects the license and is ethical.
A responsible developer respecting privacy means they:
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Respecting privacy is an ethical duty beyond the law.
Responsible use
- A responsible developer is honest about how data is used and credits others' work.
- Doing the legal thing and the ethical thing together is the goal.
Choosing an image. A photo marked "all rights reserved" is copyrighted — copying it without permission is illegal. A Creative Commons "attribution" photo is legal to use if you credit the author. Choosing the second and adding the credit is both legal and ethical; taking the first without asking is neither.
Intellectual property and copyright protect creators, so reusing work usually needs permission. Creative Commons licenses and open-source code grant permission in advance. Beyond the law lies ethics: using data legally is not always ethical, so respect privacy, be honest, and credit others.