US copyright law provides for the coverage and protection of computer programs and software. The law defines a computer program as “a set of statements of instructions to be used directly or indirectly in a computer in order to bring about a certain result”. Like all matters of copyright that concern the digital realm, the copyright of computer programs can be confusing and is an area where there is a lot of speculation. For the time being, however, copyright law is such that the protection of copyright covers all material in a program that would be copyrightable under other considerations. This means that all the visual and audio components within a program may be copyrighted, as well as the overall structure of the program, but other elements cannot. In particular, the logic that a program employs, its functions and methods, as well as its particular coding structure cannot be protected. It should be noted that for computer programs that also serve as literary creations such as video games, certain rules apply to the effect that elements displayed on the screen may in fact be copyrighted separately from the underlying source code.
When registering a copyright for a computer program, there is a distinction made between the requirements for programs that contain trade secrets and those that do not. For programs that don’t contain the type of sensitive information that a company cannot be reasonably obliged to divulge, requirements are fairly standard: large excerpts of the source code must be provided, as well as any accompanying manuals or written material. For programs that do contain trade secrets, however, it is permissible to submit code excerpts that have the secret parts blacked out so long as the amount of material that is blacked out does not exceed the amount that remains legible.
In addition, computer programs tend to be updated over time as bug reports from users come to the attention of the authors or the market changes to require new functionality. Every new version of a computer program that is created must have its copyright registered separately, with an all new application and fee each time.
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