Alternatives to the ineffectiveness of applying the copyright regime to software

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the aspects involved in the protection of software by intellectual property regimes. It develops the concepts and the conceptual differences between software and computer program, notions whose distinction is subtle and often ignored or wrongly applied by legal scholarship and case law. It sets out the elements of the object under study that are eligible for protection under the copyright regime, the regime whose statute governs the legal protection of software. It also presents the elements excluded from such protection and criticises the absence of protection for many of these components, which are highly significant for the protection sought by authors. It develops a discussion of the insufficiency of copyright protection in the face of the current technological reality and of the incongruity between the applicability of copyright and the present-day demands for software protection, which often leads developers to choose the patent regime over the copyright regime in the case of inventions involving computer programs. It puts forward some proposals aimed at solving the problem of the insufficiency of copyright protection for software and invites reflection on the question.