Computer program copyright
Computer program copyright refers to the legal protection of the original expression of a computer program. It grants the creator exclusive rights to reproduce, distribute, and modify the program. This protection encourages innovation and creativity in software development by providing a means for developers to protect their work from unauthorized use or reproduction.
8 Key excerpts on "Computer program copyright"
eBook - ePub- Janice Denoncourt(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...A piece of computer software comprises a program, which is a series of instructions expressed in code, intended to cause a particular result when used in computer hardware. Computer programs are afforded copyright protection as a category of literary work and enjoy copyright protection under ss 1(1) and 3(1)(b) Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988). Also protected is preparatory design material for a computer program under s 3(1)(c). The Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulations 1992 amended the CDPA 1988 to apply to computer programs whenever created. The normal copyright rules apply to computer programs. For example, in order to be an original literary work, the computer program must be the product of a substantial degree of skill, labour and judgement by the author: University of London Press Ltd v University Tutorial Press Ltd (1916). However, the CDPA 1988 does not define computer programs and this allows for law to adapt to evolving forms of computer software and/or technology. Case law suggests that for ‘originality’ to be found in a computer program, the court is particularly concerned with certain aspects including the algorithms or operational sequences and the structure or architecture of the program. Copyright only protects expression and does not protect ideas. For example, the idea for a program to electronically manage a dental laboratory and the functions the program is to achieve are not protected by copyright: Whelan Associated Inc v Jaslow Dental Laboratory Inc (1987). However, the code lines of the program, its algorithms, operational sequences, file structure and architecture may be protected by copyright once it is ‘recorded in writing or otherwise’ (s 3(2) CDPA 1998). This principle was explained in Ibcos Computers v Barclays Mercantile High Finance (1994) when Jacob J stated that ‘UK copyright cannot protect the copyright of a mere general idea, but can protect the copyright in detailed ideas’...
- Richard Jones, Roksana Moore, Richard Jones, Roksana Moore(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Copyright, contract and the protection of computer programs Ruth Dawn Atkins Department of Law & Criminology, Aberystwyth University, UK The extent to which permitted acts under copyright law can be varied by contractual arrangement and conversely, the manner in which proprietary interests can override contrary stipulations expressed in a contractual agreement, collectively display something of the complexity facing software creators and acquirers when defining the scope of their rights and responsibilities towards each other. This paper explores the true scope of the rights granted to software users under existing legislation and considers the measures which a software creator may legitimately advance in order to vary that position. In so doing it is suggested how possible tensions between copyright and contract principles can be resolved and how a successful and suitably transparent agreement between the parties can be promoted. Introduction In light of decisions such as Navitaire v. Easyjet Airline and Nova Productions v. Mazooma Games, 1 the boundaries between protected expression and unprotected ideas and therefore the extent of copyright protection for computer programs has been more clearly defined. These cases reinforce the view that software houses may find it difficult to succeed in a copyright action against another for writing a computer program that emulates or imitates, by having the same ‘look and feel’ as an existing program, if this involves no copying of the program code. 2 Additional or alternative means of protection could be derived from other branches of intellectual property law such as the laws relating to designs, trade marks, passing off and the law of confidence and each are worthy of consideration...
- Edward R. Beauchamp, Edward R. Beauchamp(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...To protect their interests, intellectual property producers lobby for both strong laws and enforcement of laws against all forms of imitative products. As the dominant producers worldwide, U.S. software companies generally favor laws to restrict the development of such products, and regard the absence of such laws virtually as a form of theft. Discussions of software intellectual property laws usually focus on the types of restriction, usually one of three: (1) trade secrets, typically enforced by employment agreements and litigation against direct competitors; (2) copyright restrictions on software as a creative work, with protection of both the actual work itself and specific elements of its expression; and (3) patents, the most controversial mechanism for software legal protection, since it forbids differing expressions of the same fundamental idea. But such mechanisms reflect the precedents of Western-based legal systems, not inherent requirements per se for the protection of computer software; also, focusing on mechanisms misses the consequences of the success or failure of such restrictions. More important is the consideration of restrictions in terms of the various forms of imitation: • unauthorized duplication (piracy)—making exact copies of the original product. 9 From a legal standpoint, it is relatively easy to establish piracy and set a value for damages; in the United States, it is usually covered by copyright law. • imitative implementation (cloning)—the construction of another (often competing) product by analyzing the characteristics of the original and then reimple-menting them in the imitation. To defend against this, software source code is tightly held as a trade secret, while copyright restrictions are used to control the use of reverse engineering. • imitation of fundamental concepts—a producer restricting a competitor from making a similar product, although this remains controversial even in the U.S...
eBook - ePubIntellectual Property And The Law
A Straightforward Guide
- (Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Straightforward Publishing Digital(Publisher)
...9 Copyright Definition of copyright Copyright is the right to prevent others copying or reproducing an individuals or other’s work. Copyright protects the expression of an idea and not the idea itself. Only when an idea is committed to paper can it be protected. Others can be directly or indirectly stopped from copying the whole or a substantial part of a copyright work. However, others cannot be stopped from borrowing an idea or producing something very similar. Copyright is a right that arises automatically upon the creation of a work that qualifies for copyright protection. This means that there is no registration certificate to prove ownership. To claim ownership the author will have to produce original and preferably dated evidence of the creation of the work and proof of authorship. The author will also need to show that he is a qualifying person and that the work was produced in a convention country. To be a qualifying person (s.154 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988) the author must have been, at the material time, a British Citizen, subject or protected person, a British Dependant territories citizen, a British national (overseas) or a British Overseas Citizen or must have been resident or domiciled in a convention country at the material time, which is when the work was first published. If the author dies before publication the material time is before his death. A convention country is a country that is signatory to the Universal Copyright Convention or the Berne Copyright Convention, which includes most countries in the world. The works that can qualify for protection are defined in S.1 of the 1988 Act. These are: a) Original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works b) Sound recordings, films, broadcasts and cable programmes c) Typographical arrangements of published editions Historical background Copyright has its origins in the 16 th century. The courts recognised a need for some form of protection for books...
- Steve Hedley(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge-Cavendish(Publisher)
...Therefore, argument over whether 'intellectual property' is properly so called is not very important unless (as is often the case) it is a code for discussing other, more fundamental issues as the nature of the rights at issue. From a classificatory point of view, the law of intellectual property is not very orderly, and its boundaries are unclear. Traditional doctrines such as 'copyright' and 'patent', which have in their time served a variety of purposes, have been patched up or added to as circumstances seem to require. And new doctrines have been introduced, some of great specificity (such as the legal protection of computer chip designs). The result is something of a jumble. This chapter and the next briefly review the various ways in which the law will act to protect data. While the line is not always clear, this chapter focuses on the rights with the more straightforward economic justification, which reward those who invest resources to produce or discover useful aggregations of information, and can reasonably expect the law to protect that investment and its value in the market place. The following chapter considers rights which cut across this, demanding that data which may have been gathered at some cost is nonetheless not employed purely for the collector's own purposes, but is used to serve other interests. Copyright Copyright is probably still the most important of intellectual property doctrines. Despite its age, it is purely a creature of statute. As the name suggests, its original concern was with the making of copies of published books: the owner of the copyright had the exclusive right to produce copies, a right which could be exercised either in person, or by giving or selling permission ('licence') to others to do so...
eBook - ePubCopyright Law
Volume III: Copyright in the 21st Century
- Benedict Atkinson(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The central role played by the US in regulatory developments reflected more than global demand for the products of its copyright industries. It owed much to the primary position of the US in world economic affairs, an ascendancy manifest in the extraordinary achievements of Silicon Valley. From the 1940s, streams of creative scientific endeavour – uncontained by copyright rules – created the US software industry, and the beginnings of networked communication. The 1976 US Copyright Act established copyright in computer programs and thereafter began the contest that runs to the present day between the advocates for greater or lesser copyright control over digital communication. Digital communication, and the development of the internet, has transformed the landscape of the copyright world, perhaps more pervasively than sound recording and radio and television broadcasting. It has brought to the forefront of consciousness a third force in copyright politics: the public, long neglected by legislators in favour of private and corporate interest. The public desire for access to information of all types, the extent to which politicians and copyright holders insist on control over information supply and the degree to which conflicting – or merely different – interests negotiate terms of information access are factors likely to determine the viability of copyright law in the future. Developments in International Law In 1952, representatives of 36 members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) signed the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC)...
eBook - ePub- Guillermo Cabanellas(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...This is a general problem of copyright law, but it is especially important in the area of translation due to the increasing use of computers and to the improved quality of the translations they generate. To analyse this issue, certain basic premises are necessary. There is no general prohibition against the copyright protection of intellectual works generated by or with the assistance of computers. Although intellectual works protected by copyright require the existence of an individual who acts as author, it is possible to identify such individual in the case of works generated by computers, in the form of the person who operates the computer or of the computer programmer, among other possibilities. A second premise is that copyrightable work must have an element of creativity or originality, as has been described in 2.3 above. The mere effort or cost – as is involved in computer-generated works – is not enough, although the level of creativity is not required to be high. One test applied to determine whether this requirement is satisfied is whether the author has used his or her liberty to choose among several possible expressions. 7 On the basis of these premises, the extension to translations of the general copyright rules applicable to authorship and creativity requires a basic distinction between computer-assisted and computer-generated works. Computer-assisted works imply the existence of creative activities, by one or more individuals, not performed with the direct intervention of a computer; the computer provides certain elements which are used by these individuals to create the work. For example, an individual translator may use a computer to obtain electronic translations of individual words or short phrases, so as to speed up the translation process, which is performed by the individual using the translated elements...
eBook - ePubCopyright Law and Computer Programs
The Role of Communication in Legal Structure
- Jisuk Woo(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Therefore, it seems that a higher degree of consensus has been achieved in the courts on the issue of granting copyrightability to computer programs than on the issue of infringement, although more cases decided that infringement occurred than not. Another dimension of the decisions was whether the case decided for or against the developer of the program or the copyright holder of the program. The plaintiffs of the cases consist of developers of the program, or developers and copyright holders at the same time, and copyright holders of the program who was not involved in any developing processes. One-hundred and eleven out of 115 cases involved the copyright holder of the program regardless of whether they were developers or not. Among these copyright holder-involved cases, 70 cases (63%) decided in favor of copyright holders, while 41 (36%) decided against copyright holders. There were 92 cases that involved developers of the program regardless of whether they were copyright holders of not. Fifty-nine cases (64%) decided in favor of developers and 33 (36%) decided against developers. In summary, decisions pertaining to the cases regarding computer programs tended to be made in favor of granting copyright rather than against it, to find an infringement than not, in favor of developers than against them, in favor of copyright holders than against them, and in favor of developers than in favor of copyright holders when they are in dispute. Thus, the courts were generally in favor of expanding the scope of the copyright protection of computer programs, rather than of limiting the scope of copyright protection. Actors' Resources One of the various measurements that indicate the level of resources is whether the actors are individuals or firms, or even multiple firms acting together for the litigation...
