Re: Deposit requirements for software copyright registration

On Tue, March 10, 1998, Steve Timmer <stimmer[_at_]planetlawyers.com> wrote:
>
> I am confused about the current state of the deposit requirement for
> computer software. There are a couple of publications on the Copyright
>
> Office website; one outlines the deposit of portions of source code
> and warns against the deposit of object code only; the other speaks
> of the deposit of object code as though that was the regular way to
> do it. I always understood that the first way mentioned was the way
> it had to be done, although software authors are understandably
> reluctant to deposit source code.
>
> Does anyone know what the preferred practice is-I am not sure that
> code and regulations research will be much help here, and whether
> there remains any question about whether object code is proper
> subject matter of copyright?

My understanding is that deposit of source code is preferable. The difficult aspect in our situation was determining how to strike the balance between the requirement of submitting a representative portion while still protecting trade secret. We did this by submitting all portions of the code with just under 50% of the code stripped away.

Val Dietrich
<val[_at_]us.distribution.com> Received on Wed Mar 11 1998 - 17:08:34 GMT