Construction On Reverse Engineering Systems Of Computer Software Under Copyright Law

Computer software industry is one of the biggest scales and the most extensive prospects of the sunrise industry in the 21^st century, which has played a significant role in the promotion of spreading advanced science and technology and popularization of information technology, as well as an irreplaceably important role in promoting socio-economic development and growth of social wealth. But software has many characteristics, such as high technology, rapid development, easily copied and extremely low cost of reproduction. The legal issues in the software's development, sales and uses are emerging endlessly, which are highly concerned by the majority of the general theory and practical department. However, in the copyright law, the problem of reverse engineering of software has not been clearly defined in our country's current laws, which is difficult for the court to find the right legal basis, and there is already a vivid case in our country's judicial practice. The reverse engineering issue of the computer software under the copyright law discussed in this thesis has some successful experience to be learned from in the foreign legislation and judicial practice. The reverse engineering of computer software refers to reverse anatomy and analysis of other's software's object code, in the way of disassembling and decompiling the object code into source code through making use of software's object code and user's manual, then understanding and analyzing the new source code to release the functions, organizational structure, processes, algorithms, interfaces and other design elements from other's software products. The legal issues on reverse engineering of computer software not only have theoretical research value, which are also more instructive for consummating our judicial practice and legislation. This paper is divided into six parts to discuss the issue. The first part introduces an argumentative case related to technical measures and reverse engineering of software heard by the Shanghai High Court in 2006, then leads to the related issues of the reverse engineering explored in this paper. The second part analyzes the existing basis of the reverse engineering of software, including the constitution of the computer software, the principles and implemented purposes of the reverse engineering, as well as the request of reverse engineering for the development of the software industry, and through comparing analysis of various purposes of software's reverse engineering, then defines the scope discussed in this paper. The third part makes analysis of legal focuses of the reverse engineering issues of computer software under the copyright law deeply, such as the relationship between the reverse engineering and fair use, as well as the borders between reverse engineering and technical measures and so on. The fourth part introduces the attitude of the EU directive on the legal protection of computer programs and international treaties about the reverse engineering of the software. The fifth part investigates the behavior of the U.S. judicial practice and the legislative effect of the DMCA (U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act) on the reverse engineering. The sixth part studies on the current situation of China's software industry, analyzes the inadequacy of the existing system in-depth, and learns from the advanced experience of foreign legislation and judicial practice, then puts forward the countermeasures for the relevant laws and regulations of our country in order to promote healthy development for the software industry in China.