Editing Software copyright (section)

{{Short description|Concept of copyright applied to computer code}}
'''Software copyright''' is the application of [[copyright]] in [[law]] to [[Machine-readable medium|machine-readable]] [[software]]. While many of the legal principles and policy debates concerning software copyright have close parallels in other domains of copyright law, there are a number of distinctive issues that arise with software. This article primarily focuses on topics particular to [[software]].

Software copyright is used by [[Software Developers|software developers]] and [[proprietary software]] companies to prevent the [[Copyright infringement|unauthorized copying]] of their software. [[Free license|Free]] and [[open source license]]s also rely on copyright law<!-- Do not add a wikilink for "copyright law"; it is a redirect to "copyright" which is already linked here, just one paragraph above --> to enforce their terms. For instance, [[copyleft]] licenses impose a duty on [[Licensee|licensees]] to share their modifications to the work with the user or copy owner under some circumstances. No such duty would apply had the software in question been in the [[public domain]].