Data protection and intellectual property

Data protection. Sensitive data, such as biometric data, health and financial information, personal documents and images, can cause harm if it is stolen or leaked. It is protected by encryption and authentication, and by each country's data protection laws.

Intellectual property (inventions, literary and artistic works, designs, names and logos) belongs to its creator. It is protected in three main ways:

• Copyright protects creative works (books, music, software code); it is granted automatically when the work is created.
• A patent protects an invention; it must be applied for, and lasts 20 years.
• A trademark protects a brand's name, logo or slogan.

Violations: plagiarism (presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, without citing them); copyright infringement (using a work without permission or payment); trademark infringement (using someone's mark without authority). Software piracy, copying or distributing software without authority, is copyright infringement too.

Public licences let others use and build on a work. The GNU GPL is mainly for software: it gives the freedom to run, study, share and modify it. Creative Commons (CC) licences are for creative works. CC combines four conditions: BY (give credit), SA (share alike), NC (non-commercial) and ND (no derivatives), into six licences, from CC BY (the most open) to CC BY-NC-ND (the most restrictive). FOSS (free and open source software), like Ubuntu, LibreOffice and Firefox, shares its source code. Cite it, license it, or ask permission.