New Zealand Acts

COPYRIGHT ACT 1994 - SECT 80A

80A Decompilation of computer program

1 The lawful user of a copy of a computer program expressed in a low level language does not infringe copyright in the program by decompiling it, if the conditions in subsection (2) are met.

2 The conditions referred to in subsection (1) are that—

a) decompilation is necessary to obtain information necessary for the objective of creating an independent program that can be operated with the program decompiled or with another program; and

b) the information obtained from the decompilation is not used for any purpose other than the objective referred to in paragraph (a).

3 In particular, the conditions in subsection (2) are not met if—

a) the information necessary to create the independent program is readily available to the lawful user without decompiling the computer program; or

b) the lawful user does not confine decompilation of the computer program strictly to the steps that are necessary to create an independent program; or

c) the lawful user gives the information obtained from decompiling the computer program to any person when it is not necessary for creating an independent program to do so; or

d) the lawful user uses the information obtained from decompiling the computer program to create a program that is substantially similar in its expression to the program that has been decompiled; or

e) the lawful user uses the information obtained from decompiling the computer program to do any act that is restricted by copyright.

4 In this section,
"decompile" means—

a) to convert a computer program expressed in a low level language into a version expressed in a higher level language; or

b) to copy the program as a necessary incident of converting it into that version.

History: Section 80A: inserted, on 31 October 2008, by section 43 of the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 27).