Portable SW 사용의 법적 성질

Potable software is easily installed on any portable storage gadget a user choose – whether it’s a thumb drive, a USB storage, or a pocket hard drive – portable software allows a user to enjoy the convenience and productivity of user's personal computer on any host PC. However, there is a copyright issue whether another copy on a portable device by using the portable software should be condemned under the Korean Computer Program Protection Act. This article addresses the technical concept of portable SW and examines copyright issues raised in three steps of using portable SW. Especially it applies the fair-use doctrine and the first-sale doctrine to the copyright issues, and insists that a duplication of packaged software a user owned during the packing process is belong to personal non-commercial copy and aims non-concurrent use of software, which is immune from copyright claims. Some of portable SW institute technological protection measures to protect copyrighted packaged software, and the process of making copy of software is very similar to the process of making MP3 and DVD file from analog sources. Yet, if a user copies packaged software for the purpose of distribution of them in many memory storages, it may infringe software owner's copyright.