Software's legal future

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The software industry’s history is also its future. Its history has been defined by both abundance and scarcity, and its future will be, too. In the 1970s and 80s, perceived software scarcity led U.S. legislators to formally grant intellectual property protections to software creators. Later, a different kind of scarcity—a lack of access to source code—led the founders of the free and open source software movement to flip intellectual property protections on their head in an effort to better promote abundance. That movement proved wildly successful, with today’s software industry based on vast amounts of freely available open source software resources that both organizations and individuals collaboratively build.

Abundance and scarcity will also define software’s future, but in different ways. The abundance that the open source software movement spawned is in the midst of a significant commercial phase. That sometimes means that commercial competitors bring to the table a scarcity mindset that conflicts with the norms that made that movement so successful. Intellectual property concerns at times derail what may otherwise be even greater software abundance. And because so much software is moving into the Cloud, trade secrecy may become the software industry’s most important form of intellectual property to the extent the industry abandons open models of innovation.

The software industry’s growing dependence on artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to contribute to these trends. The software industry is increasingly becoming synonymous with the AI industry, as more and more software companies either rely on AI in running their services or provide AI products to the public. As with all software, these AI technologies are increasingly provided from the Cloud, where trade secrecy is not only possible, but often preferable. But trade secrecy may be even more likely in the AI context because much of the magic in implementing AI systems lies in the know-how to piece them together from available open source software resources, decades-old AI techniques, and data. Hence, to the extent that software and AI technologists spurn open innovation in favor of a scarcity mindset, trade secrecy is likely to become its dominant form of legal protection. The advent of web3 technologies may eventually change some of these trends. But for now, increasing secrecy seems the most likely outcome. I conclude by arguing that this shift to secrecy is likely preferable to other forms of intellectual property.

Publisher

Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics

Publication Title

Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.2139

Link to Full Text

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