CONTU Final Report

Citation: Final Report of the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) (July 31, 1978).

The Final Report of the CONTU Commission was issued on July 31, 1978. In that Report, the Commission recommended that copyright protection be explicitly extended to computer programs.

The Commission also recognized certain difficulties in applying copyright to software, especially in distinguishing between the copyrightable “expression” in a program and the processes or ideas the program implements, which are not copyrightable. CONTU assumed that most copyright infringements in the then-immediate future would be “simply copying,” but recognized that technological advances would raise more difficult questions in determining the scope of copyright.