The first part of this article comprises extracts from: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/programming-languages-not-copyrightable-rules-top-eu-court-192231
The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that the functionality of a computer program and the programming language it is written in cannot be protected by copyright in relation to a case brought by SAS Institute against World Programming Limited (WPL).
WPL created a product that emulates much of the functionality of the SAS components, so that customers’ application programs can run in the same way on WPL as on the SAS components.
The court found that although WPL used and studied SAS programs in order to understand their functioning, there was “nothing to suggest that WPL had access to or copied the source code of the SAS components.” It ruled that “The purchaser of a license for a program is entitled, as a rule, to observe, study or test its functioning so as to determine the ideas and principles which underlie that program.”
If it were accepted that a functionality of a computer program can be protected as such, that would amount to making it possible to monopolize ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development, decided the court, echoing the opinion given last November by the court’s Advocate General, Yves Bot.
The result is that the court finds that ideas and principles which underlie any element of a computer program are not protected by copyright under that directive, only the expression of those ideas and principles. This in effect leaves the door open for other software companies to “reverse engineer” programs in many cases without fear of infringing copyright.
In practice this has happened in other industries – for example with mobile phones and tablets, or chocolate bars, or cars. The vertical requirements for a piece of software are often the same e.g IFRS compliance, BOM calculations, Loyalty card sysem etc just as are useability features e.g integration, or compatibility. New features such as 2 d bar codes, or cross platform workflows, or dahsboards or mobility provide an edge until others find a way of emualting the same features. It’s a thin line when you copy code and marketing material. The wide availability of open source material, and innumerable blog sites authors who publish code that is not theirs, considerably clouds the acceptable boundaries.
Is this decision good for competition, or does it discourage investment. Will it lead to enahced systems or will it introduce extra cost and complexity for encyrption and security devices? Howw ill the major software vendors react? This looks ike te tip of very large iceberg.
