Advocate General Opines That Lawful Acquirer Of A Computer Program Can Correct Errors That Affect Its Functions Through Decompilation If Necessary And If Contract Does Not Restrict It

Facts

The Belgian Court of Appeal has referred two questions to the CJEU, essentially asking whether decompilation is permitted under Article 5(1) of the Software Directive (91/250/EEC) for the purpose of correcting errors affecting a program's function or whether decompilation is only permitted in the situations set out in Article 6 (which specifically allows decompilation in certain circumstances only). If decompilation for error correction is permitted under Article 5(1), the Court of Appeal has also asked whether the conditions set out in Article 6 must be satisfied.

Law

Article 5(1) provides: "'In the absence of specific contractual provisions, the acts referred to in Article 4(a) and (b) shall not require authorisation by the rightholder where they are necessary for the use of the computer program by the lawful acquirer in accordance with its intended purpose, including for error correction".