Traditonalurduphrases

BSA management entity trying to be

interesting failures are happening in the Court of Justice of the EU on matters related to new technologies and intellectual property.

In this case it is a very interesting software protection and the rights of compulsory collective management as well as the nature of work protected by intellectual property user interface of a Judgement resolved in the case 393/09 of 22 December 2010

The initial question is raised by the attempt by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in 2001 constituted as rights management entity, we go on a software SGAE, the Czech Republic.

BSA pretended collect royalties on those aspects of compulsory collective management, such as public communication of a user interface when viewing a computer into a TV show or movie, for example.

I understand that the issue raised by the BSA in the Czech Republic as an attempt to prove this and, if successful, expand to other European Union countries as a new management entity. (Fear me if you got it ...)

The different instances of the Czech Ministry of Culture rejected calls successive BSA

claiming that "the law on copyright protects only the object code and the source code of a computer program, but not in any way the outcome of the program show the computer screen, since the graphical user interface is protected only against unfair competition, on one hand. Furthermore, said the collective management of computer programs was certainly possible in theory, but that compulsory collective management was not taken into account, however, that voluntary collective management was not helpful. " For

these reasons, consider the BSA as management entity had no reason to be.

The association appealed, and the competent court submitted two questions to the ECJ on the matter, namely

1. Must Article 1, paragraph 2, of Directive [91/250] in the sense that, for the purpose of protection of copyright in a computer program as a work protected by copyright under this Directive, is considered within the definition of "any form of expression of a computer program" graphical user interface of a computer program or part of this?
2. If the answer to the first question can be regarded as television broadcasting, which allows the public perception of the graphical user interface of a computer program or part of this, unable to actively use this program, constitute a communication the public of a work or part of this, protected by copyright within the meaning of Article 3, paragraph 1, of Directive [2001/29]

The Directive 91/50 is rmonización establishing the legal protection of computer programs and the said Article 1.2 states:

"The protection under this Directive shall apply to any form of expression of a computer program. The ideas and principles which underlie any element of a computer program, including those which underlie its interfaces, are not protected by copyright under this Directive. "

The problem, therefore, to establish whether the reference to" any form "reaches a software protection and the expression through the interface to remember only allow user interaction with the code, but impossible to reproduce the code, but only one element of this to relate to the user.

"It appears that this interface is not a form of expression of a computer program within the meaning of Article 1, paragraph 2, of Directive 91/250, and therefore can not enjoy specific protection by copyright computer programs under the directive. "

words, the software interface is not protected as computer programs, but continues to the ECJ, the fact remains that eligibility of its author's original creation, and therefore would find protection and a larger work in terms of the Directive 2001/29 , a feature which should be appreciated by the judge who referred the question to the Tribunal.

Therefore, and in relation to the second question, it is clear that:

"a television broadcasting work is in principle a public communication that the author has the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit. "

Then, by relating it to the fact that an interface can be a work, it would seem that the ECJ supports communication to the public through television interface a computer program is a public communication. However, the ECJ can not be regarded as holding this event because:

Viewers receive this communication GUI only passively, unable to intervene. They can not use that interface function, which is to allow interaction between the computer program and the user. Since television broadcasting by the graphical user interface is not available to the public so that people can access up to the essential element that characterizes the interface, namely the user interaction, no communication to Public graphical user interface within the meaning of Article 3, paragraph 1 of Directive 2001/29.

Closing this way, in my opinion, the possibility that I think ultimately pursued by the BSA to justify its existence as a management entity.

Although apparently the bug may seem counterintuitive (if you can consider the interface as a protected work would make sense that public communication is considered the exhibition, in the strict terms of the law) I think the decision is correct in its terms and its aims, but obviously need to know what criteria Czech court asked the questions.