Introduction
In today’s society, property must be protected from theft. Theft itself comes in many forms. In terms of transcribed information, as it applies to the Information Technology world, this theft can include data seizure, data duplication, data modification, or malicious forms of data tampering. When protecting property that belongs to an organization, things like copyrighting and intellectual property become key tools and concerns. This is due to the fact that even though the data in question may or may not be represented in physical format, such as with a hard copy, it is still a commodity of the company’s business.
Database Content
The data contained within a company’s database, which needs protection from theft, can range throughout every aspect of the database itself. Obviously, data stored within the database, that is important to the company’s business and most likely vital to it’s security, is the first and foremost concern in dealing with privacy and legal issues. However, due to the overwhelmingly sensitive nature of the main database content, several other key aspects of the database’s general security tend to be overlooked. These areas of security include: applications specific to the database, the database architecture itself, individual department organizational patterns within the database and even something so minuscule as the databases system information and statistics.
Initial Level Security
It is the responsibility of the system administration to deal with daily security issues. These issues can range from an unauthorized user intruding into the system to an authorized user making inappropriate use of the system or even the system simply being accessed at certain times. The first level of defense in insuring the privacy and integrity of the data in this aspect of database security is to “padlock” everything with login passwords and segregated levels of access. There is also the option of fire-walling as well as anti-virus software. In essence, the privacy concerns of daily operation fall to the database administrator or the security administrator, as the case may be.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property is defined as “any product of the human intellect that is unique, novel, and non-obvious (and has some value in the marketplace)”. The university of Texas site from which this definition was obtained, gives the following examples of intellectual property: an idea, invention, expression or literary creation, unique name, business method, industrial processes, chemical formula, computer program process, and presentation. (University of Texas, para. 1) When I was at my first place of employment, I was made to sign a disclosure form, which expressly prohibited me from discussing my work for the company with outside sources, as well as, declaring any results of my work to be the intellectual property of the company. When a company takes such measures to secure the labor results of their employees specifically in the IT community as intellectual property, they effectively turn labor results with no tangible form into patented and otherwise copyrighted product. This serves a two-fold purpose. First of all, it sets up the company as the owner of any developed applications or data put forth by its employees. Secondly, it legally secures that resultant product as the company’s own for marketing, distribution, and sale.
On the topic of intellectual property, I made a personal observation. Had the IBM corporation been prudent in 1984, they would have made one of their young programmer sign a disclosure form. As previously stated, they would have had soul ownership to that programmers efforts and the computer community would be very different then it is today. If this course of events had been followed, IBM would have been able to market for itself the Disk Operating System. As such, Mr. Bill Gates would not have been able to take his operating system design and market it for himself. Thusly, if such a disclosure form had been signed, IBM would now be in Microsoft’s position.
Copyrighting
Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States (title 17, U.S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.” is the definition of copyright according to the U.S. Copyright Office. Since Intellectual Property is one of the categories, which is placed under protection by copyright law, any data or works classified within documentation as intellectual property of the company, including any and all database contents, is legally protected by the authority of the U.S. Copyright Office. In addition to the declaration of intellectual property, a prudent company would also wish to place appropriate copyrights on any information that is publicized via computer technology from within their company. This includes Web Pages, public access databases, presentations, marketing ads, and things even as minuscule as the use of their company logo. Particularly, with regard to public access database content, the page authors should be painfully specific, when writing out the copyright disclaimer information for the page. In so doing, they should be able to secure any and all database content and place it under the legal jurisdiction of the U.S. Copyright Office.Conclusion
There are many things involved in sharing the security and privacy of a database; these things are many and varied. The employment of a competent and prudent system security officer is a good first step. Further, a frequent and perhaps procedural use of ownership and disclosure forms should be made a part of company policy. Compliance with the guidelines required by the U.S. Copyright Office is a must. It may also be prudent to keep up to date with the current events and any new laws pertaining to changes, modifications, or additions made to copyright and patent laws. With these steps in place, security and privacy of any intellectual property, not limited but including all of the company’s databases, should very well be ensured.
References
United States Copyright Office Copyright Basics [Electronic Version] Retrieved
September 7, 2004, from http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
University of Texas at Arlington: Office of Technology Transfer Intellectual
Property [Electronic Version] Retrieved September 7, 2004, from
http://www.uta.edu/tto/ip-defs.htm
