Economic Consequences Of Software Crime

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are
concerned with the legal compliance, along with asset management and costs
to their organizations. Many firms involve their legal departments and
human resources in regards to software distribution and licensing.

Information can qualify to be property in two ways; patent law and
copyright laws which are creations of federal statutes, which are subject
to Constitutional authority. In order for the government to prosecute the
unauthorized copying of computerized information as theft, it must first
rely on other theories of information-as-property. Trade secret laws are
created by provincial law, and most jurisdictions have laws that
criminalize the violations of a trade-secret holder’s rights. The
definition of a trade secret varies somewhat from province to province, but
commonly have the same elements. For example, the information must be
secret, not of public knowledge or of general knowledge in the trade or
business. A court will allow a trade secret to be used by ...

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in the 1980 Computer Software Act, and the report acts as informal
legislative history to aid the courts in interpreting the Act.

In 1980, the Copyright Act was amended to explicitly include computer
programs. It now states that it is illegal to make or to distribute copies
of copyrighted material without authorization, except for the user’s right
to make a single backup copy for archival purposes. Any written material
(including computer programs) fixed in a tangible form (written somewhere –
i.e. printout) is considered copyrighted without any additional action on
the part of the author. Therefore, it is not necessary that a copy of the
software program be deposited ...

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