ABSTRACT
This Article reviews the highs and lows of US copyright case law construing software copyright scope over the nearly 50 years since copyright protection was first extended to computer programs. When the amendment was passed in 1980, initial expectations were that the scope of copyright in computer programs would be quite thin; some early cases, however, interpreted that scope rather broadly. Subsequent decisions resisted this trend, as courts sought to refine the analysis of software copyright scope, applying the doctrines of merger and scenes a faire, as well as § 102(b), to filter out unprotectable elements. Fair use also has played a role in delimiting the scope of software copyright, most recently in the Supreme Court’s Google LLC v Oracle America, Inc decision.
Samuelson, Pamela, The Scope of Software Copyrights Revisited (April 3, 2026), UC Berkeley Public Law Research Paper (forthcoming); Stanford Technology Law Review (forthcoming).
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