An excerpt:

The Court (Grand Chamber) hereby rules:

1.      Article 1(2) of Council Directive 91/250/EEC of 14 May 1991 on the
legal protection of computer programs must be interpreted as meaning
that*neither the functionality of a computer program nor the
programming
language and the format of data files used in a computer program in order
to exploit certain of its functions constitute a form of expression of that
program and, as such, are not protected by copyright* in computer programs
for the purposes of that directive.


The ECJ today ruled that the programming code behind a piece of software is
not a form of expression and therefore cannot be copyrighted.

Link to ruling:
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=122362&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=110132


-- 
Ali Sternburg
[email protected]
Harvard College, Class of 2009
American University Washington College of Law, J.D. Candidate Class of 2012
http://www.alisternburg.com
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