The Evolution of Computer Law: From Software Copyright to Artificial Intelligence

116 questions on the evolution of computer law, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Are AI deepfakes and synthetic voice clones legally actionable?
• Are electronic signatures and electronic contracts legally binding?
• Are open source licenses legally enforceable?
• Are shrinkwrap software licenses enforceable?
• Are software menu commands and command hierarchies copyrightable?
• Can a competitor legally write a program that does exactly what my software does?
• Can an AI system be named as an inventor on a U.S. patent?
• Can an employer still sue a departing employee under the CFAA for taking company data?
• Can an exchange of emails form a binding contract?
• Can a platform be sued for breaking a promise to remove content, despite Section 230?
• Can a private company bring a civil claim under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
• Can a Section 101 patent-eligibility challenge be decided at the pleading stage?
• Can a software copyright be used to control what owners do with hardware they already bought?
• Can a work generated by artificial intelligence be copyrighted?
• Can object code — the machine-readable ones and zeros — be copyrighted?
• Can software be patented in the United States?
• Can you copyright the “look and feel” of a graphical user interface?
• Does adding “on a computer” to an abstract idea make it patentable?
• Does a platform lose Section 230 protection if it moderates or removes user content?
• Does loading software into a computer's RAM create a “copy” under the Copyright Act?
• Does Section 230 protect a company from liability for content its own AI model generates?
• Does Section 230 protect algorithmic recommendations of user content?
• Does Section 230 protect a platform from liability for content the platform itself creates?
• Does Section 230 protect platforms from copyright and trademark claims?
• Does software copyright protect a program's structure, sequence, and organization?
• Does the DMCA safe harbor protect a service provider from injunctions as well as damages?
• Does the United States have a comprehensive federal data privacy law?
• Do I have to register software with the Copyright Office to own the copyright in it?
• Do open-source license obligations apply to AI models trained on open-source code?
• Has Congress changed the law of patent eligibility for software?
• Has every state adopted the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act?
• How broadly do courts apply Section 230 immunity?
• How did Diamond v. Diehr open the door to software patents?
• How did eBay Inc. v. MercExchange change patent injunctions?
• How did the Federal Trade Commission become the de facto U.S. privacy regulator?
• How does HIPAA apply to cloud providers and other technology vendors?
• How does the Copyright Act define a “computer program”?
• How do trade secret and contract protection fit alongside copyright and patent for software?
• How has Fourth Amendment doctrine adapted to smartphones and digital records?
• How long does copyright protection in software last?
• How should an app present its terms of service so the agreement — and its arbitration clause — will hold up?
• If my engineers disassemble a competitor's software to learn its file format and then write new code, is that infringement?
• Is anonymizing or de-identifying data a reliable privacy strategy?
• Is an operating system copyrightable, or is it an unprotectable “method of operation”?
• Is computer code protected speech under the First Amendment when it is used to break DRM?
• Is computer software protected by copyright in the United States?
• Is computer source code protected speech under the First Amendment?
• Is it legal to circumvent DRM in order to repair, research, or unlock a device you own?
• Is it legal to reimplement another company's API?
• Is it legal to reverse engineer someone else's software?
• Is scraping publicly available data from a website a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
• Is training an AI model on copyrighted works infringement or fair use?
• Is violating a website's terms of service or an employer's computer-use policy a federal crime?
• Is violating the GPL copyright infringement or breach of contract?
• Must a copyright owner consider fair use before sending a DMCA takedown notice?
• Was copying someone else's software illegal before Congress acted in 1980?
• Was encryption software once regulated as a weapon?
• What are data minimization and storage limitation?
• What are “source-available” licenses like the SSPL and the Business Source License?
• What are the DMCA safe harbors and what do they protect against?
• What are the main legal risks of using open source software in a commercial product?
• What claims besides direct copyright infringement are being brought against generative-AI developers?
• What consumer-consent conditions does E-SIGN impose before records can be delivered electronically?
• What did Bilski v. Kappos decide about business-method patents?
• What did Diamond v. Chakrabarty contribute to patent eligibility?
• What did Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. decide about copying API code?
• What did Gottschalk v. Benson hold about patenting algorithms?
• What did Honeywell, Inc. v. Sperry Rand Corp. decide about the ENIAC patent?
• What did Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union decide about the First Amendment and the internet?
• What did Schrems II change about transferring personal data out of the European Union?
• What did State Street Bank hold, and why did it matter so much?
• What did Van Buren v. United States hold about “exceeds authorized access”?
• What does 17 U.S.C. § 102(b) exclude from copyright protection?
• What does 17 U.S.C. § 117 allow the owner of a copy of software to do?
• What does DMCA Section 1201 prohibit?
• What does the phrase “code is law” mean?
• What happens if an online service provider loses the DMCA safe harbor?
• What is a DMCA counter-notification and what happens after you send one?
• What is a DMCA takedown notice and what must it contain?
• What is a patent assertion entity, or “patent troll”?
• What is a repeat-infringer policy and why does an online service need one?
• What is a software bill of materials (SBOM) and why does it matter legally?
• What is computer law?
• What is copyleft, and how does the GNU General Public License work?
• What is copyright management information under Section 1202?
• What is Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act and why has it generated so much litigation?
• What is “red flag” knowledge under the DMCA safe harbor?
• What is secondary copyright liability, and what did the Napster and Grokster cases establish?
• What is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act?
• What is the abstraction-filtration-comparison test for software copyright infringement?
• What is the Alice/Mayo two-step test for patent eligibility?
• What is the California Consumer Privacy Act and what rights does it give consumers?
• What is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
• What is the difference between accessing a computer “without authorization” and “exceeding authorized access”?
• What is the difference between clickwrap and browsewrap, and which one is enforceable?
• What is the difference between protecting software with a copyright and with a patent?
• What is the difference between source code and object code?
• What is the GDPR and why does it matter to U.S. companies?
• What is the idea/expression distinction in copyright law?
• What is the machine-or-transformation test, and is it still the law?
• What kinds of software patent claims survive an Alice challenge?
• What must an online service provider do to qualify for the DMCA safe harbor?
• What problem was Section 230 enacted to fix?
• What recurring patterns help predict how the law will handle a new technology?
• What should a lawyer do first when a client's problem involves a technology with no clear legal category?
• What was CONTU and what did it recommend?
• What was the scholarly objection to protecting software through copyright?
• When does a website lose Section 230 immunity for content it helped create?
• Which sector-specific federal statutes govern data privacy in the United States?
• Who qualifies for Section 230 protection?
• Who was Aaron Swartz and why did his case matter to computer-crime law?
• Why did the statutes that built the modern internet work by removing liability rather than granting rights?
• Why does so much technology law come from court decisions rather than statutes?
• Why do the legal questions raised by artificial intelligence look so much like earlier computer-law disputes?
• Why is Section 230 controversial?
• Why was the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act criticized as overbroad?