For the purposes of copyright protection, a computer program is treated as a literary work, so that copyright will subsist if the program is an original literary work: see Sections 1 and 3(1)(b) Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 ("the CDPA"). The owner of copyright in a computer program has the exclusive right to copy the work (ie to reproduce the work in any material form) or to make an adaptation of the work or any substantial part thereof: sections 16 and 17 CDPA. Copying includes storing the work in any medium by electronic means: section 17(2) CDPA and making copies which are transient or incidental to some other use of the work: section 17(6) CDPA. An "adaptation" means an arrangement or altered version of the program or a translation of it, and "translation" includes a version of the program in which it is converted into or out of a computer language or code or into a different computer language or code, otherwise than incidentally in the course of running the program: section 21 CDPA.
Fine could result up to $250,000.00 and up to 10 years in jail