I use a dlink DCS-1000W in a weatherproof enclosure mounted on the outside of my house. I have a cron script that grabs the image off of it every 30 seconds and uploads it to my linux box at the house. I have a web page on my server at work that dynamically grabs that picture each time the page is loaded. I can view that web page on my blackberry at any time to see what is going on at the house. My application is more security monitoring than baby watching, but the technique is the same.
The next improvement is to use motion (available on sourceforge) to detect when something is happening, take a few pictures, and mail them to me.
I am not a lawyer and this does not constitute legal advice.
This post illustrates several of the common misconceptions about copyright law. The phrase 'copyrigting programs' does not make sense. Copyright is not a process, it is a physical attribute. Every physical manifesation of an idea has a copyright, just like it has a color. You can't 'copyright' anything. You can assign the copyright to another party, you can register the object with the U.S. Copyright Office, or you can place the circle-c symbol on it. That's not the same as copyrighting.
In general, whoever creates the object (photograph, program, song, whatever), owns the copyright. There are specific exceptions, however. The one applicable to here is the exception called 'work for hire'. Anything that you produce as a result of employement belongs to the employer, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.
The definition of work for hire in the copyright law is:
(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
There are some additional defitions, but none that are relevant here. Clearly, if these programs you create fall within the scope of your employement, your employer owns them, not you. You can't copyright them because you don't own the copyright.
So why do folks register copyrights or put a copyright notice on a program? You can think of it like putting up a 'no trespassing' sign. Putting up the sign does not make it illegal to trespass, it just makes it harder for someone to claim they didn't know that it was illegal to trespass. Putting the mark on the program does not grant you any more legal rights, but it removes one of the common defenses of infringement,innocent infringement. If you put the copyright mark on the program, no one can claim they didn't know that it wasn't in the public domain.
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The next improvement is to use motion (available on sourceforge) to detect when something is happening, take a few pictures, and mail them to me.
This post illustrates several of the common misconceptions about copyright law. The phrase 'copyrigting programs' does not make sense. Copyright is not a process, it is a physical attribute. Every physical manifesation of an idea has a copyright, just like it has a color. You can't 'copyright' anything. You can assign the copyright to another party, you can register the object with the U.S. Copyright Office, or you can place the circle-c symbol on it. That's not the same as copyrighting.
In general, whoever creates the object (photograph, program, song, whatever), owns the copyright. There are specific exceptions, however. The one applicable to here is the exception called 'work for hire'. Anything that you produce as a result of employement belongs to the employer, unless there is an agreement to the contrary.
The definition of work for hire in the copyright law is:
(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
There are some additional defitions, but none that are relevant here. Clearly, if these programs you create fall within the scope of your employement, your employer owns them, not you. You can't copyright them because you don't own the copyright.
So why do folks register copyrights or put a copyright notice on a program? You can think of it like putting up a 'no trespassing' sign. Putting up the sign does not make it illegal to trespass, it just makes it harder for someone to claim they didn't know that it was illegal to trespass. Putting the mark on the program does not grant you any more legal rights, but it removes one of the common defenses of infringement,innocent infringement. If you put the copyright mark on the program, no one can claim they didn't know that it wasn't in the public domain.