3 ms·
Since the blog is down here http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=122362&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1326
by yread 15y ago
Since the blog is down here
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=122362&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=132624 http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&...
is the judgment
and some commentary:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/copyright-can-t-block-software-reverse-engineering-court.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-02/copyright-can-t-blo...
most important bit:
Consequently, the answer to Questions 1 to 5 is that Article 1(2) of Directive 91/250 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.
- mbreese 15y agoThat's interesting because it goes even further than I'd have expected: that file formats themselves aren't protected. I guess that isn't surprising, since you'd want a market where programs could all compete to operate on the same files, but I don't remember that being talked about before (at least in reference to Oracle vs Google). And that does go to the format of the Java .class files. I wonder what the EU courts would have to say about an encrypted file format...