After a decade of bruising legal battles, the courts and software industry norms largely resolved the costly war over the scope of copyright protection for computer software. By the mid 1990s, freedom to develop interoperable devices, systems, and software triumphed over broad copyright...

This article describes the evolution of copyright protection for computer software. It shows how the courts successfully deployed and adapted copyright doctrines in a manner that protected software against piracy while at the same time allowing for competition and innovation