The Text in the Machine: American Copyright Law and the Many Natures of Software, 1974–1978 (October 2016)
Con Diaz, Gerardo (Author)
Technology and Culture
Volume: 57
Issue: 4
Pages: 753-779
Publication date: October 2016
Language: English
This article is a case study in the history of software copyright in the United States from 1974 to 1978. It focuses on the work of a group called the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works. CONTU, as this group was known, faced the problem of choosing which ontology of software—by which I mean a conception of the nature of software as an invention—should serve as the conceptual underpinning for the law of software copyright. In particular, the commissioners needed to decide whether computer programs are texts, machines, means to communicate with machines, or many of these things at once. CONTU’s history shows how the discursive emergence of software as a new technology has been shaped by the convergence of commercial interests, the transmission of technical knowledge to lay audiences, and idiosyncratic views on the nature of information technology and human creativity.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Chapter
Samuelson, Pamela;
(2011)
The Strange Odyssey of Software Interfaces as Intellectual Property
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001221563/)
Article
Mirowski, Alexander;
(2017)
At the Electronic Crossroads Once Again: The Myth of the Modern Computer Utility in the United States
(/p/isis/citation/CBB369914463/)
Article
Yi, Doogab;
(2011)
Who Owns What? Private Ownership and the Public Interest in Recombinant DNA Technology in the 1970s
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001220006/)
Article
Joseph Coppola;
(2023)
The Commodification of Dr. King, or What Intellectual Property Rights Did to Civil Rights
(/p/isis/citation/CBB398343249/)
Book
Lessig, Lawrence;
(2004)
Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity
(/p/isis/citation/CBB000750342/)
Article
Brad Sherman;
(2018)
Intangible Machines: Patent Protection for Software in the United States
(/p/isis/citation/CBB843796158/)
Book
Con Díaz Gerardo;
(2019)
Software Rights: How Patent Law Transformed Software Development in America
(/p/isis/citation/CBB992270814/)
Article
Jones, Steve;
(2002)
Rights, copyrights, and technology: Tradition, trends, and trouble
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001181072/)
Article
Nicholas Paul Sheppard;
(March 2020)
Can Smart Contracts Learn from Digital Rights Management?
(/p/isis/citation/CBB343046132/)
Chapter
Con Diaz, Gerardo;
(2022)
Scientology Online: Copyright Infringement and the Legal Construction of the Internet
(/p/isis/citation/CBB630692149/)
Book
Biagioli, Mario;
Jaszi, Peter;
Woodmansee, Martha;
(2011)
Making and Unmaking Intellectual Property: Creative Production in Legal and Cultural Perspective
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001221432/)
Book
Dommann, Monika;
(2014)
Autoren und Apparate: die Geschichte des Copyrights im Medienwandel
(/p/isis/citation/CBB001551280/)
Article
Hickey, Ann M.;
Davis, Alan M.;
Kaiser, Denali;
(2003)
Requirements Elicitation Techniques: Analyzing the Gap between Technology Availability and Technology Use
(/p/isis/citation/CBB161177735/)
Article
Bultema, Patrick;
(2003)
Notes from the Field: Requirement Elicitation
(/p/isis/citation/CBB355987355/)
Thesis
Gerardo Con Diaz;
(2016)
Intangible Inventions: A History of Software Patenting in the United States, 1945-1985
(/p/isis/citation/CBB374973840/)
Article
Nyman, Linus;
Laakso, Mikael;
(2016)
Anecdote: Notes on the History of Fork and Join
(/p/isis/citation/CBB424414308/)
Article
Kneuper, Ralf;
(2017)
Sixty Years of Software Development Life Cycle Models
(/p/isis/citation/CBB236951329/)
Article
Yost, Jeffrey R.;
(2016)
The March of IDES: Early History of Intrusion-Detection Expert Systems
(/p/isis/citation/CBB570334134/)
Article
Aspray, William F.;
Cortada, James W.;
(2016)
Before It Was a Giant: The Early History of Symantec, 1982-1999
(/p/isis/citation/CBB189385729/)
Article
Mote, C. D.;
(Winter 2020)
Ruth Davis, Tech Pioneer
(/p/isis/citation/CBB315440638/)
Be the first to comment!