Legal Issues Regarding Software Use and Reuse within the European Union Legislation

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of legal issues in the use and reuse of a software artifact with reference to the European Union regulations. Up to now software have been protected by means of the author law, however they are very different from other artifacts subject to the author law. This problem is getting more urgent as reuse is becoming a widely used software development methodology. Guidelines for implementing an "almost safe" contract for using and reusing software artifact are presented here. Questions regarding common misconceptions of the rights of the purchasers are also described.