ABSTRACT
Among one hundred and fifteen federal cases that dealt with the copyright protection of computer programs, 87 cases were held at the level of the District Court and 28 at the level of the Court of Appeals. The largest number of cases were decided on the preliminary injunction issue. Thirteen cases were summary judgment cases. Thirty-three cases were District Court level final judgment cases and 28 cases were appeals cases that made final judgment. Therefore, examining the ways in which the courts deal with the computer programs that have clearly different characteristics will help us understand how the copyright law deals with the notion of user's choice or pleasure as opposed to the process of independent creation. Judge's characteristics that may have some relation to the ways in which they decide the copyright cases include their age, the presidents who appointed the judges, the year in which they were appointed, and the political party of the appointing presidents.
