Curious question in the business of software forum : “If I implement an algorithm published in a computer science journal using the formulas, pseudocode and description in the publication, do I retain the copyright of my source code?”
I really have no idea about the right answer to this but as a researcher I find comforting every time I see that (at least occasionally) a research paper reaches somebody outside the research community and, even more important, that this somebody believes the idea is useful in practice.
FNR Pearl Chair. Head of the Software Engineering RDI Unit at LIST. Affiliate Professor at University of Luxembourg. More about me.
This is a very interesting question. I do not know the answer either, but copyright is a difficult issue in academic circles. In fact, the key question from my understanding is “who pays for your research?”. If your research is paid by a national funded project, shouldn’t the copyright OF the results be owned by the Government? (AT the END OF the DAY, they ARE funding you TO do the research). Same FOR European-funded projects. However, this issue IS clear IS a company IS funding your research: copyrights AND patents belong TO them. Should individual researchers hold copyright OR patents, WHEN they ARE funded USING PUBLIC money?
It depends, most of what you mention is NOT copyrightable, copyright does not protect ideas, only their expression. While algorthms (ideas) are not, pseudocode may be but sourcecode (expression) is copyrightable.
1) Does the journal require granting copyrights to journal for papers submitted? Check submission, yes there may be an exception for goverment employment or funded programs.
2) Are you employed and does your employer hold copyrights? Did you withhold copyright prior to employment for this specific work?
3) Does a previous employer or somebody else hold copyright?
This legal issue keeps lots of sourcecode out of journals. For ideas it is a moral right of creators to be credited for the work.
Lets see what others think or if legal citations can be found.
I have a tangential question and I don’t have a computer background so bear with me: I developed a set of indicators that, when applied to an extremely broad data set in various formats, reduces the data into structured fields. Essentially, it’s a set of “if – then” statements for knowledge-based decision support system.
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