by Mugurel Stejar

Created on: April 21, 2008

In modern societies, private property is very well protected by laws. I think that this is a wise move. And I totally agree with the protection of intellectual property also which is an open discussion. It is always very easy to determine property rights over a well defined physical item than it tis o determine the ownership of a work of art, a writing or anything that has to do with the creative process.

I totally understand the present arguments between J.K. Rowling on one side and RDR Books-Steve Vander Ark on the other.

The current controversy hits right home, because a few years back I was involved in a copyrights lawsuit my self, as the author of a computer program which was decompiled illegally, and modified. The person who did this was a former client of mine who after using the program for a while decided that he needed modifications, and he wanted me to give him the source code, so that he had the modifications done by a person who was charging less than I did.

When I entered the contract with him, I asked if he wanted the code or just the use of the program and he said that he did not need the code. I took the time to explain to him, that he should think twice about the issue because it could come back to bite him in the future. Boy, did I wish I was not a crystal ball reader.... I did the program, I did a lot of modifications to the program to be a helpful provider, but I decided not to be cooperative when he started to ask me to reverse the code to the original because what he wanted was not as good as he thought it was. Well, to be honest with myself I warned him several times that what he wanted involved a lot of writing and it will not work as he thought it would work. Nevertheless he insisted. I drew the line when I had to reverse the code for free. So we parted not really good friends. I understood that he was not happy. Actually I was not happy myself, but I was not independently wealthy and I could not afford to waste about sixty hours just to satisfy his curiosity for free. I know, computer geeks are impossible people when they ask money for their hard work...

One day I received a phone call from him asking me to give him the password to the program. I reminded him that he did not want to pay for the rights to the code originally, and unless he changed his mind and he pays my fee, he will not get it. Hot temper businessman, and mostly because he had a lawyer on retainer who took care of his business transactions, he started a lawsuit claiming

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