Is the hardware dongle a computer program for the purposes of the Copyright Act?
The AutoCAD lock consisted of a simple 8 bit shift register and a XOR gate. Upon receiving a signal from Widget C, the lock would shift left one place and the newly empty rightmost bit is set to the XOR of the sixth and seventh bit. Finally, the sixth bit is output back to Widget C for verification. Using an oscilloscope, the respondent saw that the output of the hardware lock was in actuality a simple 127 bit repeating sequence, and stored that sequence in an EPROM, to return the sequence expected by Widget C at the appropriate time. Section 10(1) of the amended Copyright Act defines a “computer program” as meaning “an expression, in any language, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended … to cause a device having digital information processing capabilities to perform a particular function”. At first instance, Northrop J concluded that both the AutoCAD lock and the Auto Key lock were devices “having digital information processing capabilities to perform a particular funct
