In 1989 - latest available figures - piracy of computer programs in
7 countries of the Community alone cost some 4.5 billion dollars.
In order to stem this enormous illicit trade in computer programs, the
Twelve have just unanimously adopted a Directive proposed by the European
Commission on the initiative of Vice-President Martin Bangemann, which
will soon put in place a legal protection system for European software.
This is a real European 'first' for copyright law, the first copyright
measure to be adopted following the publication of the White Paper on
completing the Single Market by 1992.
As soon as possible, computer programs will be protected everywhere
within the Community in exactly the same way by copyright law as other
literary, musical or artistic works and will also benefit from additional
protection at international level, particularly through the Berne
Convention. This means, in short, that the main trading partners of the
Community will give the same level of protection to European programs.
The European Commission will make every effort to help the twelve Member
States' administrations in transposing the Directive into national law.
The preparatory stages leading to the adoption of the Directive were the
subject of much discussion and comment. The final text adopted by the
Twelve therefore representing a delicate balance of all the interests
involved: producers of programs, their competitors on the market and the
users.
The legal regime which it provides is in general more 'liberal' towards
competitors and users than was the case previously in the protection
systems of some countries in the Community. In fact, now the European
Directive allows the making of a copy (a "back-up" in the industry
jargon) and the correction of errors in programs and it alllows the
reverse engineering of programs but only to the extent necessary to
ensure the interoperability of independently created programs.
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Up to now, only five Member States had specific copyright protection
systems for computer programs : the United Kingdom, France, Germany,
Spain and Denmark. In other countries, draft bills were being prepared
(Ireland, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands and Portugal). To avoid a mosaic of
quite divergent national legislation from developing the Commission
proposed one coherent European legislation on the subject.
In spite of the complexity and the newness of the subject matter of the
proposed legislation, the text was approved unanimously by the Twelve and
the European Parliament proposed no amendments on second reading: this
more than proves the awareness of the political decision-makers of the
vital role which the computer industry plays in our economic development,
an industry where European companies play a leading role.
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