Software copyright registration
1. How many years is the software copyright protection period?
According to Article 14 of the Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software, the software copyright comes into being from the date when the software development is completed. The software copyright protection period of a natural person is the life of the natural person and 50 years after his death, ending at 65438+February 3 1 day in the 50th year after his death; The software was co-developed, up to 65438+February 3 1 50 years after the death of the last natural person.
The software copyright protection period of a legal person or other organization is 50 years, ending at 65438+February 3 1 day in the 50th year after the first publication of the software. However, if the software is not published within 50 years from the date of completion of development, this Ordinance will no longer protect it.
Second, the object of software copyright protection
Computer software, whether it is system software or application software, is protected by laws and regulations. A software includes a computer program and its related documents. A computer program refers to an encoded instruction sequence, or a symbolic instruction sequence or a symbolic sentence sequence that can be automatically converted into an encoded instruction sequence. The object code and source code of the program are protected by laws and regulations. Computer documents refer to written materials and charts written in natural or formal languages, which are used to describe the content, composition, design, functional specifications, development, test results and usage of programs, such as program design instructions, flow charts, user manuals, etc. The necessary condition of software protection is that it must be independently developed by developers and fixed on some tangible object (such as tape, film, etc.). ) Copyright laws and regulations protect the expression of ideas in works. As for the ideas in the works, they are not protected by laws and regulations. The copyright protection of software cannot extend to the ideas, concepts, discoveries, principles, algorithms, processing procedures and operating methods used in developing software.
Three, software copyright protection has the following main contents:
1. Theme of protecting software copyright
Software copyright owner is the subject of software copyright protected by law, mainly including citizens, legal persons or other organizations who enjoy software copyright according to law.
Generally speaking, the software copyright belongs to the software developer, unless otherwise stipulated by law. Software copyright belongs to software developers, which is a general principle to determine the ownership of software copyright. Software developers include independent developers, cooperative developers, entrusted developers and developers appointed by state organs. The ownership of the latter three copyrights requires a formal written contract. According to the law, a person who obtains copyright by inheritance, assignment or acceptance can also become a software copyright owner and be protected by law.
2. Protect the object of software copyright.
Computer programs (including source programs and object programs) and their related documents (such as program design instructions, flow charts, user manuals, etc.). ) are the objects of software copyright and are protected according to law.
3. It is to protect the rights enjoyed by software copyright owners.
Software copyright owners enjoy the following rights:
The right to publish, that is, the right to decide whether the software is open;
The right of signature, that is, the right to indicate the identity of the developer and sign the software;
The right to modify, that is, the right to add or delete software or change the order of instructions and statements;
The right to copy, that is, the right to make one or more copies of the software;
Distribution right, that is, the right to provide the original or copy of the software to the public by way of sale or gift;
The right to rent, that is, the right to license others to use the software temporarily for a fee, except that the software is not the main object of rent;
The right of information network communication, that is, the right to provide software to the public by wired or wireless means, so that the public can obtain the software at the time and place they choose; Translation right, that is, the right to convert the original software from one natural language to another; Software copyright owners may license others to exercise their software copyright and have the right to receive remuneration.
The software copyright owner may transfer his software copyright in whole or in part, and shall be entitled to remuneration.
4. Protect the rights of legal copy owners of software.
The legal owner of software refers to the person who obtains the legal copy of software through legal channels. In short, people who obtain genuine software through formal channels enjoy the following rights according to law:
A. According to the use needs, install the software into devices with information processing capabilities such as computers;
B make backup copies to prevent the copies from being destroyed, but these copies are only for your own use and may not be provided to others;
C make necessary modifications in order to use the software in the actual computer application environment or improve its functional performance, but such modified software can only be used by itself and cannot be provided to a third party.
5. It is to protect the users and assignees of the software copyright transfer license contract.
The Regulations on the Protection of Computer Software stipulates that the software copyright can be transferred in whole or in part, and those who obtain the software copyright through exclusive license or transfer or exclusive license of certain rights can be protected according to law.
It should be noted that a written contract must be signed to transfer or license copyright, and the registration procedures must be fulfilled.
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