Is it legal to develop and sell software that operates in a similar fashion to available software? I'm currently working on a project that can provide remote desktop assistance like RealVNC. There are many programs already available providing similar services (like these programs). I wrote all code myself. Can I sell my program or it's not legal because there are already programs providing same features?
It's legal to sell your program if it doesn't infringe any law or anyone else's intellectual property. Examples of things that can get you into trouble: statutes: Some countries have export laws that forbid you to distribute certain types of encryption without proper export controls. patents: If you use a design or invention that is under patent protection you could be liable for infringing patent rights. trademark: If you improperly use a trademarked name you could be subject to damages. licensing: If you violate a license to which you have agreed you can be sued for damages. copyright: If you appear to have copied something without license you can be liable for damages. Just because: If someone wants to sue you, they can. Since there's no way to guarantee your business won't run into liability from infringement &ndash; or from some other failure &ndash; people normally conduct business through entities like LLCs that shield them from personal liability. Depending on their concerns and finances, they may also: Buy liability insurance Consult professionals like IP lawyers to: review their business and products in advance to look for and address glaring infringements, and/or correctly protect their IP using the tools mentioned above.
Probably yes. But it is only a trademark violation when used in connection with a sale of good and services in a manner that is suggests affiliation with the programming language. Thus, you can have a bar named &quot;C++&quot; but not you own programming language or updates to an existing programming language.
What you are missing is that the original copyright holder can give permission to make derivative works with strings attached. There is no automatic right to derive something from a copyrighted work. Those strings could include constraints on what you create in the process of making the derivative work. Yes it is a string limiting what you can do with something you own, but you would have been warned in the license and had the choice to start from scratch. People do create work-alike software with no copyright strings using two teams and a &quot;clean room&quot; design process. It is a lot harder than modifying something another person has developed. Also, law and someone's understanding of morals need not be aligned at all. And, in patent law, just creating something all by yourself from scratch does not give you ownership. If someone else did it first and got a patent you can't make the item you might think you own. IP law is complex and looking for &quot;fundamentals&quot; may not get you anywhere.
There is also the part that says &quot;except as expressly permitted by law&quot;. In the USA, you are allowed to run the software. This means the operating system making the copy that transfers the software from your hard drive to the RAM of the computer, and all necessary changes there. And this includes modifications to relocate the software, or to protect it against certain attacks by hackers, and I'm confident that Apple checked that it includes translating x86 machine code to ARM machine code and store the translated copy together with the original. Similar things have been done already around 2000 or so, and no software manufacturer has ever complained.
Yes. You can sell it for whatever you can get for it. The license allows you to watch the DVD. If you sell the DVD, you won't be able to watch it - but the buyer will. This is same principle that books are subject to copyright, but there is nothing stopping you selling your books second-hand to a dealer.
"Doing the same thing" is very common. We even have names for certain categories of websites, such as "web shop" and "blog". Such concepts are not protected in general. Obviously, you can't copy the name of existing webshop, or their logo, but things like a "rectangular layout of products for sale" aren't original. There is of course a grey area here, because there's a continuum of similarity. In general, similarities that follow from technical justifications are acceptable (having an upload button is sort of the point for your website), similarities that are cosmetic only (same color choice) might be interpreted as intentional attempts to cause confusion.
You have a false premise: "it offers the same conditions", and "MIT license is functionally equivalent to CC-BY". These premises are not true. CC-BY: applies to more than just software; it applies to artistic or literary work, databases, other material disclaims endorsement explicitly withholds moral rights explicitly does not license patent rights (MIT license gives anyone who obtains a copy of the software the right to use it, a patent right) prescribes the acceptable forms of attribution Those are just some of the differences.
A creative prosecutor could probably come up with a raft of charges. But you could start with the federal wiretapping statute, 18 USC 2511, and the anti-hacking statute, 18 USC 1030. Here is an indictment brought in 2012 under the anti-hacking statute against someone who distributed and used this kind of software. Depending on the facts and the jurisdiction, this may also constitute the tort of intrusion on privacy or seclusion, a tort recognized by the Restatement (Second) and actionable in many jurisdictions. The most common test is whether the invasion would be "offensive to a reasonable person." And no, contrary to the commenter's view, a "click to accept" license is not a get out of (literal) jail free card here. Courts interpret adhesion contracts liberally to favor the signer, and outrageous terms hidden in small print are not guaranteed to be enforceable, especially if the software is clearly designed to trick people into installing it. The license terms might even hurt you, by providing evidence of your intent to use the software for perving rather than its ostensible use. This is not an exhaustive list, and there may be additional state-level statutes that apply. Bottom line: yes, this is clearly illegal, and the courts will be reluctant to let you trick people into getting away with it.