%0 Journal Article
%T Software als Schutzgegenstand des Europ ischen Urheberrechts
%A Heinze
%A Christian
%J JIPITEC : Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law
%D 2011
%I Digital Peer Publishing
%X After 20 years of silence, two recentreferences from the Czech Republic (Bezpe nostn¨ªsoftwarov¨¢ asociace, Case C-393/09) and from theEnglish High Court (SAS Institute, Case C-406/10)touch upon several questions that are fundamen-tal for the extent of copyright protection for soft-ware under the Computer Program Directive 91/250(now 2009/24) and the Information Society Direc-tive 2001/29. In Case C-393/09, the European Courtof Justice held that ¡°the object of the protection con-ferred by that directive is the expression in any formof a computer program which permits reproductionin different computer languages, such as the sourcecode and the object code.¡± As ¡°any form of expressionof a computer program must be protected from themoment when its reproduction would engender thereproduction of the computer program itself, thus en-abling the computer to perform its task,¡± a graphicaluser interface (GUI) is not protected under the Com-puter Program Directive, as it does ¡°not enable thereproduction of that computer program, but merelyconstitutes one element of that program by meansof which users make use of the features of that pro-gram.¡± While the definition of computer program andthe exclusion of GUIs mirror earlier jurisprudence inthe Member States and therefore do not come as asurprise, the main significance of Case C-393/09 liesin its interpretation of the Information Society Direc-tive. In confirming that a GUI ¡°can, as a work, be pro-tected by copyright if it is its author¡¯s own intellectualcreation,¡± the ECJ continues the Europeanization ofthe definition of ¡°work¡± which began in Infopaq (CaseC-5/08). Moreover, the Court elaborated this conceptfurther by excluding expressions from copyright pro-tection which are dictated by their technical function.Even more importantly, the ECJ held that a televisionbroadcasting of a GUI does not constitute a commu-nication to the public, as the individuals cannot haveaccess to the ¡°essential element characterising theinterface,¡± i.e., the interaction with the user. The ex-clusion of elements dictated by technical functionsfrom copyright protection and the interpretation ofthe right of communication to the public with refer-ence to the ¡°essential element characterising¡± thework may be seen as welcome limitations of copy-right protection in the interest of a free public domainwhich were not yet apparent in Infopaq. While CaseC-393/09 has given a first definition of the computerprogram, the pending reference in Case C-406/10 islikely to clarify the scope of protection against non-literal copying, namely in how far the prot
%K Computerprogramm
%K Software
%K Richtlinie 2009/24
%K Richtlinie 91/250
%K Richtlinie 2001/29
%K Pro- grammcode
%K Steuerungsfunktion
%K Benutzeroberfl che
%K Idee(n) und Grunds tze
%K Algorithmen
%K Pro- grammiersprachen
%K Individualit t
%K Werkbegriff
%K ffentliche Wiedergabe
%K Programmstruktur
%K Schnitt- stelle
%K Individualit t
%K Originalit t
%U https://www.jipitec.eu/issues/jipitec-2-2-2011/3082