"prior art" is a term concerning patents, whereas this is copyright. There needs to be a certain level of creative work to qualify for copyright, and an empty

"prior art" is a term concerning patents, whereas this is copyright. There needs to be a certain level of creative work to qualify for copyright, and an empty program that does nothing is rather unlikely to qualify. The definite case on that subject must be John Cage's "4:33", which is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Its copyright has been upheld in court. Yes, the estate of John Cage sued somebody who "quoted" to much of his work of silence. That sounds somewhat silly, yet it's well-reasoned: the infringing artist actually acknowledged Cage in the CD inset. And 4'33 isn't really only silence. Audio recordings feature the pianist sitting down, open and closing the piano cover, and the audience making various noises. It's somewhat "out there" obviously, but just the fact that it's rather well-known kind of shows that it did what it was supposed to do.