The scope of copyright protection for computer programs has proven to be a vexing issue for the courts. Over the past year, several courts focused on the issue and reached different results. This article will give background and then review and comment upon the newest decisions.

In September 1986, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts sponsored a bill, “The Visual Artists Rights Amendment of 1986” which was not unlike many others that had been introduced into the United States Congress in recent years. ft proposed toexpand the Copyright Act of 1976 by granting artists certain control over their works beyond that currently secured under Copyright, contract or tort protections, as well as the ability to share in the proceeds of future (secondary) sales of the work. Although the bill never saw the light of legislative action, the issues it addressed are very much in the forefront of current art and law concerns.

It took the incisive pen of H.G. Wells to provide a simple understanding of the diffuse and arcane British constitution:

The purpose of this paper is to briefly look at some aspects of the constitution that the British “settled down into” and to examine arguments calling for the incorporation of a written declaration of individual rights.

The computer revolution in Israel began almost ten years ago, when computers for public use appeared for the first time in banks, challenging a very hesitant and embarassed public. After banks, other public and private institutions, especially financial institutions like insurance companies, the Stock Exchange and others, started producing databases for internal and external purposes.

This is the third installment in a series of studies which began in 1983. The earlier essays surveyed computer-assisted legal research in Europe, the Commonwealth, and North America. The present study will concentrai on developments in the United States.