Legal requirements P.3

Question 1

What is the definition of a program according to the Australian Copyright Act? (p. 289)

Answer 1

Copyright law categorizes computer programs as “literary works”, encompassing a wide range of elements like pseudocode, flowcharts, programs in books, websites, machine code, and various programming languages.

Question 2

What does copyright protect? (p. 289)

Answer 2

Copyright protects how something is expressed, not the underlying idea. If you create a computer program, the code is copyrighted, but others can make their own program for the same purpose without infringement as long as they don’t copy your code.

Question 3

How can copyright be infringed? (p. 289)

Answer 3

Copyright is infringed when a person other than the copyright owner uses a
“substantial part” of the material in any of the ways reserved for the copyright
owner without their permission.

Question 4

What copying is allowed in the Copyright Act? (p. 289)

Answer 4

Educational Use: Some educational institutions may have exemptions for educational purposes.

Public Domain:
Works with expired copyright or voluntarily released into the public domain.

Private Use:
Making personal copies for individual, non-commercial use.