I've scanned and collected some interesting documents on the history of the legal protection of software - especially software copyright.

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO):

• Advisory Group of Governmental Experts on the Protection of Computer Programs (Geneva, March 8-12, 1971), Copyright [WIPO's monthly bulletin], March 1971, pp. 35-40
  
  This is the first international document I know, which discusses the desirability of software copyright and patents. Selected quotes: first, the main question of the whole thing was to answer "(i) What form of legal protection of computer programs at the national level is most appropriate both from the point of view of the developing countries and from that of the producers of software" (italics added). Two others on the term of protection: "The Expert of the Soviet Union ... from 5 to 10 years would be a reasonable perior for computer programs..." and "The Expert of the United States of America ... different terms of protection subject to different conditions, and could include the possibility of renewal of the period".
  
  
• Model Provisions on the Protection of Computer Software, Copyright, January 1978, pp. 6-19
  
  WIPO then drafted model law provisions that "essentially adopt a copyright law approach" with some interesting departures from a direct application of copyright. For example, "countries interested in the model provisions might like to consider a ... system for the deposit or registration of computer software". Further, the provisions state that the "rights under this Law shall in no case extend beyond 25 years from the time when the cmputer software was created".
  
  
• Group of Experts on the Legal Protection of Computer Software (Geneva, June 13 to 17, 1983), Copyright, September 1983, pp. 271-279
  
  After the model law WIPO continued to the direction of a "sui generis" or special kind of intellectual propertion of computer programs. They drafted a new treaty proposal (see below) that would have dealt with software. In a meeting of experts, however, the proposal ddin't get much support. A committee turned the proposal down by concluding that it was "premature to take, for the time being, a stand on the question of the best form for the international protection of computer software". As an anecdote, Finland was quite alone in its statement that "in a recent meeting of interested circles in Finland ... there was a trend in favor of a sui generis approach." The committee also turned down the idea of registration system saying that "the study of establishing such a deposit, at least at an international level, should not be pursued at this time".

  Draft Treaty for the Protection of Computer Software (Geneva, June 13 to 17, 1983) [Thanks to Jukka Liedes for locating the draft treaty; all markings are from Liedes' original document]
  
  This is the draft treaty discussed in the above meeting. The most interesting article is number 4: it combines elements from trade secret law [sections (i) and (ii)], copyright law [sections (iii) to (v), (vii) and (viii)] and patent law [section (vi)]. As such, it would have given extremely strong protection for software developers - there are no exceptions to the proposed exclusive rights! Duration? 20 years, for sure.

• Group of Experts on the Copyright Aspects of the Protection of Computer Software (Geneva, February 25 to March 1, 1985), Copyright, April 1985, pp. 146-149
  
  In the mid 1980s, the fight concerning the right way to protect software seemed to be over: "a great number of participants developed arguments in favor of recognizing copyright protection of computer programs; patentability of computer programs per se had been ruled out under the law of virtually every country ... copyright, in its development, had proved to be flexible enough to extend to works of technical nature...". So patents were out; special kind of intellectual property protection didn't get much favorable opinions either. The discussion on the optimal term continued. Interestingly, "one delegation proposed to consider the application of Article 7(4) of the Berne Convention to computer programs. That Article made it a matter for national legislation to provide for a period of protection - not less than 25 years from the making of the work - as regards works of applied art."
  
  

United States

• Final Report of the National Commission on New Technology Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU), Library of Congress, Washington D.C., July 31, 1978
  
  This report was perhaps the crucial point after which copyright became the preferred form to protect computer programs. Subsequently, the United States amended their copyright law in 1980 to define computer programs as literary works.
  
  

European Community (now European Union)

• Green Paper on Copyright and the Challenge of Technology - Copyright Issues Requiring Immediate Action. Commission of the European Communities, COM (88) 172, 7 June 1988
  
  The background report for the following directive proposals.
  
  1. Software directive
  
  
• Commission proposal for a Council Directive on the legal protection of computer programs (Submitted by the Commission on 5 January 1989), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 91/4, 12.4.1989, pp. 4-16
  
  European Community decided to "harmonize" software copyright laws across Europe. Selected quotes from the original proposal: "the algorithms, from which the program is built up, should not be protected... They are equivalent of the words by which the poet or the novelist creates his work of literature, or the brush strokes of the artist or the musical scales of the composer". Since "the term of protection ranges from 25 years from the creation to 70 years after the death of the author" they proposed to harmonize the term in between as 50 years from the creation of the program. This is perhaps the first large-scale law proposal, which defines as a "secondary infringement" the "circumvention of any technical means which may have been applied to protect a program".
  
  
• Opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive on the legal protection of computer programs (Adopted by the Economic and Social Committee on 18 October 1989), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 329/4, 30.12.1989, pp. 4-9
  
  The Economic and Social committee made a number of changes to the proposal. For example, it added the right to make backup copies. On the term of protection, it noted legalistically that "as the life of a computer program is invariably far shorter than 50 years... concern ... is academic and should not be allowed to weigh against the need to adhere to the provisions of the Berne as closely as possible". When policymakers start to justify new legal rules with a "need" to follow other (non-binding) legal rules and not reason, I think they should start looking for a new job...
  
  
• Opinion of the European Parliament on the proposal for a Council Directive on the legal protection of computer programs (Amended by the European Parliament on 11 July 1990), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 231/78, 17.9.1990, pp. 78-83
  
  Parliament added more user rights including the right to make a backup copy, the right to necessary copies to run the program, the right to study the program and the right to make interoperable programs through reverse engineering. It also made the directive to explicitly refer to Berne Convention and say that computer programs should be treated as literary works as defined in the Berne Convention.
  
  
• Commission amended proposal for a Council Directive on the legal protection of computer programs (Submitted by the Commission on 18 October 1990), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 320/22, 20.12.1990, pp. 22-30
  
  The amended proposal included basically all of the parliament's amendments.
  
  * * *
  2. Term directive
  
  
• Commission Proposal for a Council Directive harmonizing the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights (Submitted by the Commission on 23 March 1992), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 92/6, 11.4.1992, pp. 6-9
  
  After software copyright was established, Brussels decided to extend the term. According to the proposal, "minimum term laid out by the Berne Convention ... [50 years from the author's death] ... was intended to provide protection for the author and the first two generations of his descendants; whereas the average lifespan in the Community has grown longer..." and "a harmonization of the terms of protection of copyright and related rights cannot have the effect of reducing protection currently enjoyed by rightholders..." Thus, we should follow the longest term available, which was 70 years from the death of the author for all kind of works. The new term includes also computer programs although software copyright directive explicitly transfers software copyrights to employers so the "heir justification" doesn't have much ground. Notably, the proposal lacks consideration that computer programs would be a special case.
  
  
• Opinion on the proposal for a Council Directive harmonizing the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights (Adopted by the Economic and Social Committee on 1 July 1992), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 287/53, 4.11.1992, pp. 53-56
  
  Finally some criticism: "ten of the twelve [member states] have opted for the minimum 50 years' period..." and "the advantages of ever greater protection of the consumer and the facilitation of access to our literary heritage at affordable prices, especially in the developing world, would not be assisted by the unilater extension of the duration of protection...". This must be the sharpest one: "an extension of the period of protection ... could result not in a reduction but indeed in an increase in ... piracy". In short, the committee tried its best to cut 20 years off.
  
  
• Opinion of the European Parliament on the proposal for a Council Directive harmonizing the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights (Amended by the European Parliament on 19 November 1992), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 337/205, 21.12.1992, pp. 205-209
  
  But the committee failed big time. Parliament didn't take their opinion into account at all. Instead, the Parliament went ballistic: they wanted a copyright that never ends! Please read a proposed new article 4a a few times: "Any person who lawfully makes available to the public a work which is in the public domain, or causes it to be made available, shall have the same rights of exploitation relating thereto as would have fallen to the author. The term of protection of such rights shall be 25 years from the time when the work was first made available to the public". Public domain - R.I.P. Amen. I'd really like to know (1) where did the idea come from, (2) who was the individual who made the proposition and (3) who in the end voted for it.
  
  
• Commission amended proposal for a Council Directive harmonizing the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights (Submitted by the Commission on 7 January 1993), Official Journal of the European Communities, No C 27/7, 30.1.1993, pp. 7-14
  
  The amended proposal kept parliament's invention of infinite copyright. Only "public domain" was changed to "a work the copyright protection of which has expired". Guess what? That invention didn't last to the finally accepted directive text (...well, in fact the idea kind of lasted, but its applicability was limited to previously unpublished works). Whoever blocked it should be now congratulated.

Finland (these are in Finnish)

• Hallituksen esitys Eduskunnalle laeiksi yksinoikeudesta integroidun piirin piirimalliin sekä tekijänoikeuslain, oikeudesta valokuvaan annetun lain ja patentti- ja rekisterihallituksesta annetun lain muuttamisesta [shortened version] (HE 161/1990 vp)
  
  The proposal to amend the Finnish copyright law to include specific rules on computer programs.
  
  
• Hallituksen esitys Eduskunnalle laiksi tekijänoikeuslain ja tekijänoikeuslain muuttamisesta annetun lain voimaantulosäännöksen 2 momentin muuttamisesta (HE 211/1992 vp)
  
  This is basically the Finnish copyright law amendment proposal based on software copyright directive. Explanations to specific paragraphs closely follow the directive.
  
  
• Decision of the Helsinki Court of Appeals (Sonera Systems Oy v. VF Partner Oy), case number 3571, given 28.12.1999 (R 99/661) [Thanks to Jukka Kemppinen for the scan]
  
  The relevance of this case was that it basically applied the "abstraction-filtration-comparison" method to assess source code copying first developed in the US case Computer Associates v. Altai in 1992. The principles of the US case were furthered in the opinion of a law professor and then applied by a computer science professor (see below for these documents). Some 10-15% of the code was probably copied but that was found trivial or insignificant. The court said referring to the computer science professor that similarities can be explained because "programs were written by the same programmers, programs implemented the same functionality, the user interface was similar, the used programming language (TCL) gives only limited possibilities for variation, and the requirements of the banking environment forces one to implement certain parts in certain fashion" and further explained that "the use of memory is dictated by the banking and telecommunication standards and any identical code must be understood as simple routine code".

  First expert opinion by the computer science professor [Thanks to Ilkka Haikala himself for the documents]

  Second expert opinion by the computer science professor

  Third expert opinion by the computer science professor

  Fourth expert opinion by the computer science professor

• Decision of the Helsinki District Court (Microsoft Corporation v. Lindows Inc), case number 18188, given 19.7.2004 (03/27732)
  
  Helsinki district court was the last instance to give a formal judgement in the very public case about Lindows' use of Microsoft's "Windows" trademark. Depends on how you look at it, the case is a perfect example of "forum-shopping", or the "global market - local law" dilemma. After this decision was given, a settlement was announced the very same day in the US (the decision was given at 4 pm in Helsinki which equals to 6 am in US west coast). A quick history of the case was that between 2001-2003 Microsoft tried in vain to stop Lindows from "free-riding" Windows in the US courts. When it failed, the battle moved overseas. District courts at least in Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands first gave temporary injunctions halting the marketing of Lindows within their jurisdictions but they didn't stop Internet-sales (the court in the Netherlands actually did but Lindows was able to overturn that decision). Helsinki district court, in a well-argued case from both sides, then finally ordered Lindows to basically stop Internet-sales into Finnish addresses, remove all marketing material in Finnish from their website, and not to help Finnish consumers and companies to get any Lindows-marked products from any source. The court specifically said that Windows as a trademark is suggestive (rather than generic) and that "Windows is now, based on continued use, a very distinctive and well-known trademark in Finland". - In the US, Lindows had just before managed the court to start considering whether "Windows" is a generic non-distinctive word and its trademark registration thus invalid. Contrary to Europe, US trademark law considers whether the word is generic and non-distinctive at the time of registration or market-entry. In Europe, a mark - whether distinctive or not at the time of registration or market-entry - can always become distinctive through continued use. Thus, the both companies had in the end a strong incentive to settle: Lindows was risking European sales and Microsoft its trademark in the US.