Structure, sequence and organization: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:21, 24 September 2013

Revision as of 13:49, 24 September 2013

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The district court ruling in ''Whelan'' drew on the established doctrine that even when the component parts of a work cannot be copyrightable, the structure and organization of a work may be.{{sfn|Hamilton|Sabety|1997|p=241}}

The court also drew support from the 1985 ''SAS Inst. Inc. v. S&H Computer Sys. Inc.'' in which it had been found that copyright protected organizational and structural details, not just specific lines of source or object code.{{#tag:ref

|Software is written in [[source code]], a collection of instructions written in a human-readable programming language. With many languages this is translated by a compiler into [[object code]], where the instructions are in a form that the computer can execute. Source code copying may be crudely disguised by changing the names of procedures and variables. This form of disguise will be immediately visible when the object code is compared, since the object code will be the same.

|group=fn}}{{sfn|Epstein|2006|p=11-27}}

Sequence, structure and organization (SSO) in this case was defined as "the manner in which the program operates, controls and regulates the computer in receiving, assembling, calculating, retaining, correlating, and producing useful information."{{sfn|Kappel|1991|p=699}}

SSO refers to non-literal elements of computer programs that include "data input formats, file structures, design, organization and flow of the code, screen outputs or user interfaces, and the flow and sequencing of the screens."{{sfn|Scott|2006|p=5-56}}. However, the SAS Inst. Inc. V. S&H Computer Sys. Inc. demonstrated that copyright can exist in derived works from publicly funded developed source code in the public ___domain <ref>S & H COMPUTER SYSTEMS v. SAS Institute, Inc., 568 F. Supp. 416 - Dist. Court, MD Tennessee 1983</ref> rather than address the issue of SSO.

Jaslow appealed the decision.