Díaz Gerardo Con
Technol Cult. 2016;57(4):753-779. doi: 10.1353/tech.2016.0106.
This article is a case study in the history of software copyright in the United States from 1974 to 1978. It focuses on the work of a group called the National Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works. CONTU, as this group was known, faced the problem of choosing which ontology of software-by which I mean a conception of the nature of software as an invention-should serve as the conceptual underpinning for the law of software copyright. In particular, the commissioners needed to decide whether computer programs are texts, machines, means to communicate with machines, or many of these things at once. CONTU's history shows how the discursive emergence of software as a new technology has been shaped by the convergence of commercial interests, the transmission of technical knowledge to lay audiences, and idiosyncratic views on the nature of information technology and human creativity.
本文是一项关于1974年至1978年美国软件版权历史的案例研究。它聚焦于一个名为版权作品新技术使用全国委员会（CONTU）的组织的工作。该组织面临着选择软件的哪种本体论的问题——我指的是将软件的本质视为一种发明的概念——应该作为软件版权法的概念基础。具体而言，委员会成员需要决定计算机程序是文本、机器、与机器通信的手段，还是同时具备以上多种属性。CONTU的历史表明，软件作为一种新技术在话语层面的出现是如何受到商业利益的趋同、技术知识向普通受众的传播以及对信息技术本质和人类创造力的独特观点的影响的。
