Connected items, the Internet of Things and data collected there are all coming together, and in ways that perhaps aren’t so clear, but impact us all significantly.
I will tell you that I’m still madly reading and lookikng through diffrent DMCA and copyright things, but the general push for this post is about copyright and ownership of code. Sort of the “break the seal” rules. There court cases out there now that are being reviewed that have to do with ownership of code in unusual places.
In particular, what caught my eye was a post about John Deere’s vehicles and equipment that have automation bits built-in. Those automation bits (think GPS controls and management of the machinery) are similar to what is in most newer cars – the proverbial “black box.”
Which brought me to this post about cars and their data.
And, if you start considering the implications of the licensing, vs. ownership, if applications and code running in “things” then you do have to wonder about the slippery slope that includes the information created by those same solutions. If we don’t own the applications, you could infer that the data created by them is proprietary and owned by the application makers.
Yikes. In my opinion, this is really important that this be defined and that the DMCA be updated to reflect new realities of automation.
The whole ownership thing is a weird place for me personally. We have built software and created solutions to be used by a customer. I’ve always felt they owned their data – all of it. That we owned our code and the trade secrets there, but they were free to modify if they needed. Of course if they broke it, there would be charges for fixing it. 🙂
But somehow that seems to have changed and the implication as more and more automation that we may not even really realize is there, is huge.
Today, if we talk about people and their “privacy” and ownership of personally identifiable information, we think social security numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, etc. Those things that are top of mind that we have come to know and understand that we need to protect.
But what about driving habits? People already give those up to potentially get discounts. Does everyone have a price for different information bits? What happens as it is all pulled together?
It’s not an easy question to answer. The benefits are sure to be significant and provide good rationale for sacrificing masses of information. But the risks are there too.
How do we manage all of this – and in the end, who DOES own the data, the code, etc.?