The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Introduction
People who write, paint, compose music, design web pages or invent something, for example, have 'intellectual rights' over what they have done. They have often invested a lot of time, energy and money creating original works and they have the right to expect that it shouldn't be stolen by others. They own the copyright. The copyright of an original creation is the legal protection given to that creation. The copyright owner is the person who owns the copyright and can decide how it can be used.
What the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1998 means
The Act means that somebody who wants to use what somebody else has created must get permission first from the copyright owner. The copyright holder can refuse to give permission, give permission freely, give permission but attach some conditions of use or could charge for permission. These rights are enshrined in law in The Copyright and Patents Act 1988.
For example, If you buy a computer game, you cannot just burn copies of the game onto CDs without getting written permission first. If you find some photographs on the Internet that you like, you cannot just use these images in your own piece of work without getting permission, especially if you are using the images in a business, which makes money for you. You cannot just download a song from the Internet and then copy it and give it to friends or use it in your own piece of work. You are effectively stealing the original creations of other people for your own benefit. Many authors of web sites, photographs and images, for example, now use software that 'stamps' the images with the copyright owner's details.
Proprietary software (also called 'closed source' software)
Many of the programs you use today are known as 'proprietary software'. That means someone owns the legal rights to the program and the owner has only given you permission to use it, usually (but not always) by selling you a copy for a fee. Windows, Serif applications and Microsoft Office are good examples. If you want to use any of these software titles, you must buy a copy. Once bought, you don't actually own the software (although you do have a copy of it) but you have bought the right to use it. You can't make copies of it and distribute them to friends because that breaks the licence agreement you made when you bought the software. You can't go and modify the code either. You have only bought the right to use it. This type of software is known as 'proprietary software'.
Open source
When you buy a piece of software, you can run it and use it but you cannot see the code. That means that you cannot modify it and you are not allowed to distribute it to other people. There are, however, lots of software applications where you can do exactly that. You can download it and use it, distribute it to others and you can also see the code. That means that you can change it and generally play around with it and experiment. This is a great way to learn and improve your programming skills! Examples of open source software include a Virtual Learning Environment called Moodle and the operating system known as Linux.
Open source software and free software
There are some situations where open source software can have licences attached to them so an application that is open source software is not the same as 'free software'. However, the distinction is very small and most open source software is indeed free and vice verse. For the purposes of the GCSE Computing course, however, it is best to keep a clear distinction between open source software and free software.
Creative Commons (CC) licence
A creative commons licence is a type of licence that allows creators who produce an original work to let other people use their work freely, with the right to share the original, use it or build upon it. There are various types of CC licences but they all broadly allow users to use an original work without seeking further permission. Often, the only requirement is for the person using the work to give credit to the original creator. If you ever need some music, pictures, photos, videos or anything else for a project, try seeking out websites that host only Creative Commons material. E.g. search Google for Creative Commons music, or Creative Commons photographs.
Plagiarism
If you do a computing project as part of your course, you cannot include work in your project that somebody else has done without properly giving credit to the author if required. It is not enough to say that 'you didn't know' if something was copyrighted. It is your responsibility to find out before you use it. If you do use somebody else's work without giving it due credit then this is known as plagiarism. It is both unethical and a breach of copyright. There are many web sites offering projects for sale for both school work and university work. Educational institutions and exam boards have become very wise to these sites and now regularly run software through submitted coursework to look for passages that have been stolen.