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Software copyright is the extension of copyright law to machine-readable software. While many of the legal principles and policy debates concerning software copyright have close parallels in other domains of copyright law, there are a number of distinctive issues that arise with software. This article will primarily focus on topics peculiar to software. Software copyright is used by proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorized copying of their software. Free and open source licenses also rely on copyright law to enforce their terms. For instance, copyleft licenses impose a duty on licensees to share their modifications to the copylefted work with the user or copy owner under some circumstances. No such duty would apply had the software in question been in the public domain. == History in the United States == Historically, computer programs were not effectively protected by copyrights because computer programs were not viewed as a fixed, tangible object: object code was viewed as a utilitarian good produced from source code rather than as a creative work. Due to lack of precedent, this outcome was reached while deciding how to handle copyright of computer programs. The Copyright Office attempted to classify computer programs by drawing an analogy: the blueprints of a bridge and the resulting bridge compared to the source code of a program and the resulting executable object code.〔Lemley, Menell, Merges and Samuelson. ''Software and Internet Law'', p. 34〕 This analogy caused the Copyright Office to issue copyright certificates under its "Rule of Doubt". In 1974, the Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) was established. CONTU decided that "computer programs, to the extent that they embody an author's original creation, are proper subject matter of copyright."〔 In 1980, the United States Congress added the definition of "computer program" to and amended to allow the owner of the program to make another copy or adaptation for use on a computer.〔Lemley, Menell, Merges and Samuelson. ''Software and Internet Law'', p. 35〕 This legislation, plus court decisions such as ''Apple v. Franklin'' clarified that the Copyright Act gave computer programs the copyright status of literary works. Many companies began to claim that they "licensed" but did not sell their products, in order to avoid the transfer of rights to the end-user via the doctrine of first sale (see ''Step-Saver Data Systems, Inc. v. Wyse Technology''). These software license agreements are often labeled as end-user license agreements (EULAs). In 1998, The United States Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which criminalizes evasion of copy protection (with certain exceptions), destruction or mismanagement of copyright management information, but includes a clause to exempt ISPs from liability of infringement if one of their subscribers infringes. In addition, the DMCA extends protection to those who copy a program for maintenance, repair or backup as long as these copies are "destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Software copyright」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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