Software piracy: international copyright overview

Despite the ease of copying, making an unauthorized copy is the theft of valuable intellectual property, the creation of which required the investment of millions of dollars and countless man-hours of effort. The paper provides an overview of international copyright. International trends have been strongly toward the following: express protection of computer software under copyright law, often as a literary work under the Berne Convention on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works; prohibition of the commercial rental of computer programs, sale of a computer program by the right holder; and increased penalties for infringement of copyrights. In addition, there is a trend toward the patentability of computer programs, although the nations of the world are almost evenly divided over extending patent protection to computer software. The paper provides a brief summary of laws effecting these changes