Copyright protection for computer programs

Abstract

Zerov K. Copyright protection for computer programs. The article discusses the main approaches to the legal protection of software, particularly computer programs, in accordance with the current legislation of Ukraine and foreign practices. It is concluded that copyright allows to adequately protect the forms of expression of a computer program: object and source codes of the program. It is noted that a computer program shall be protected if it is original in the sense that it is the author's own intellectual creation, and no other criteria shall be applied to determine its eligibility for protection in Ukraine. Like any other copyright object, a computer program has «legally indifferent» and «legally significant» elements of the form of expression. The legally indifferent elements of a computer program should include a) elements dictated by the efficiency of a computer program; (b) elements that are dictated by external factors; and (c) elements that the original programmer had taken from the public domain. The main approaches to the use (copying) of the source or object code of computer programs as part of other computer programs are given: «literal copying» and «non-literal copying.» It is concluded that «non-literal copying» of a computer program cannot violate the copyright law in Ukraine since the ideas and principles on which any element of a computer program is based are not protected by copyright. It is assumed that the modification of a computer program by eliminating technical means of protection and further use of computer program gives grounds to qualify such actions as two separate types of copyright infringement: infringement of the copyright holder's property rights and deliberately circumventing technical means of copyright protection. It is noted that in some scenarios, theuse of works under the limitation of copyright without circumvention of technical means may be impossible. The proposal to legislatively provide for the possibility of a person who has the right to freely use work to contact the copyright holder with a request to remove technical means solely for such use, as well as cases of permissible circumvention of technical means, has been made.Keywords: computer program, copyright, literal copying, non-literal copying