to province, but commonly have the same elements.For example, the information must be secret, not of public knowledge or ofgeneral knowledge in the trade or business. A court will allow a trade secretto be used by someone who discovered or developed the trade secretindependently if the holder takes adequate precautions to protect the secret.In 1964, the National Copyright Office began to register software as a form ofliterary expression. The office based its decision on White-Smith Music Co.v. Apollo, where the Supreme Court determined that a piano roll used in aplayer piano did not infringe upon copyrighted music because the roll was partof a mechanical device. Since a computer program is textual, like a book, yetalso mechanical, like the piano roll in White-Smith, the Copyright Officegranted copyright protection under the rule of doubt.In 1974, the government created the Natural Commission on New TechnologicalUses (CONTU) to investigate whether the evolving computer technology fieldoutpaced the existing copyright laws and also to determine the extent ofcopyright protection for computer programs. CONTU concluded that whilecopyright protection should extend beyond the literal source code of a computerprogram, evolving case law should determine the extent of protection. Thecommission also felt copyright was the best alternative among existingintellectual property protective mechanisms. CONTU rejected trade secret andpatents as viable protective mechanisms. The CONTU report resulted in the 1980Computer Software Act, and the report acts as informal legislative history toaid the courts in interpreting the Act.In 1980, the Copyright Act was amended to explicitly include computerprograms. It now states that it is illegal to make or to distribute copies ofcopyrighted material without authorization, except for the user's right tomake a single backup copy for archival purposes. Any written material(including computer programs) fixed ...
