COMPUTER PROGRAM LICENSE AGREEMENT
Erwin Sundoro

I. Introduction
Computer Programs, or softwares as everybody might have called them nowadays, have been known as the most important aspect in the presence of information technology for everyone. You can easily see them in our daily lives, from just to make a neat-looking shopping list of the week or to enhance everyday office productivity, to handling the day-to-day complexity maintenance of oilrigs in South Pacific Ocean. These tools consist of huge numbers of not-so-easy-to-understand lines of binary code, do really take control of our daily activities, as we may say that in a simple sentence.
Even today, the trend of starting business, in the form of complex electronic commerce or any simple ones cannot be done without the involvement of these computer programs, applications and tools. As the number of program developers keep on growing and the hype to get any higher education in IT-literacy seems like never end, there is an indication that the development of computer program is going to be a good point not to miss. With programming techniques and languages becoming much simpler, we will find, not later than we can realize, the increased amount of computer programs and also the programmers, their creators.

II. Computer Programs and Copyright
There are so many thoughts on the existence of programmers and their involvement in programming, ‘to create’ something later to be known as computer programs. Some say that the profession of programmer is now still considered to be a profession that requires a high expertise and skill. Needless we might have said, it really put lots of hardwork and fortitude to create computer program, just like a canvas painted by an artist.
Generally, any original work of authorship fixed in a tangible form may be fall under the protection of a valid copyright. There is no need for ones to constitute a new discovery or for ones to be novel, nevertheless ones must be original and in a fixed form.
That is why, in Indonesia and also the rest of the world, the existence of Computer Programs is protected by Intellectual Property Rights. Specifically, it falls under the protection of copyright, considering the aspect of literate and artistic work in the computer program, as has been mentioned in the previous paragraph. The proprietary characteristic in computer programs has also led them to be protected by copyright.
The (English-translated) definition of copyright is stipulated in Indonesian Copyright Law as follows:
“Copyright is an exclusive right of its author or of any assignees, to make such work public or to reproduce its creations or to give any license to it, subject to the limitations provided in prevailing laws and regulations.”
The existence of copyright protection for computer programs was not acknowledged in the first enacted ICL (the ICL of 1987), but thanks to the contribution of the drafters of ICL, which did point out in their law-drafting preliminary discussion to revise the ICL that computer programs are protected under the copyright law, the output for that tought was expressely presented in the 1992 revision of ICL 1987, so in the end, the list of things that can be protected in the means of copyright is stipulated in Article 11 of ICL as follows:
a)	books, pamphlets and all other written works;
b)	lectures, talks, speeches, etc;
c)	performances, such as music, traditional music, drama, dance, shadow plays, pantomime and broadcast among others for radio, television and film, as well as video recordings;
d)	dance creations (choreography), musical composition or songs with or without text and voive sond recordings;
e)	all forms of art, such as painting, carving, sculpture and calligraphy, the protection of which governed by article 10 paragraph 2;
f)	batik art;
g)	architecture;
h)	maps;
i)	cinematography;
j)	photography;
k)	COMPUTER PROGRAMS; and
l)	translations, interpretations, adaptation and compilations of selected works.

III. License Agreement and Computer Program 
a. The need of License for Computer Program
Why do we need license for computer program? The answer of that question is very simple. You have already known the existence of copyright in computer program and the correlation that those copyrights are owned by their authors, at least not until the copyrights has been assigned to any assignee. It will be natural somewhat for any author or artist, in this case the programmer, to protect their creations and to prevent ones being exposed to any unauthorized measures and actions, by reserving all the rights contained in copyright. As stated above, the ICL mentions the author (or the copyright holder)’s right to give license for their (copyrighted) creations, as long as it is not violating the limitations provided in the prevailing laws and regulations.
With the existence of license agreement, the author (or the assignee of copyright), or we may called the Licensor (the person who gives the license), may stipulate any specific limitation(s) to the Licensee (the person who receive the license) regarding the usage of their copyrighted materials, in this case, are the computer programs. For exmple, during the valid protection term, no other person may legally reproduce, copy and perform the work without paying the copyright owner a royalty or otherwise obtaining permission. The Licensor can easily put these restrictions in the license agreements.
That is why the term ‘selling’ for computer programs is deliberated to be incorrect, since based on the previous paragraph, we can found out that computer programs are not being sold to the ‘buyer’ but licensed.  What are being sold are merely the licenses, along with the object codes/executable codes of the computer programs, in which are embodied in any medium, such as floppy disks, CDROMs or even DVDROMs. It will be much wiser to use the term of ‘Licensor’ for the ‘seller’ and ‘Licensee’ for the ’buyer’.
Conclusively, there are two main reasons for the presence of license agreement for computer program, which are:
-	to protect the intellectual property rights in the computer program; and
-	to impose restriction on the usage of the computer program.

b. The form of License Agreement
License Agreement does not have to be in printed form, it can be also in digital form, whatever seems to be practical, as long as it is in writing. Why it has to be in written form? It will be required in the registering process in Copyright Office and in the other hand it is also considered to make sure the Licensee will be bound to the terms and conditions stipulated in the License Agreement.
Any end-user wants it to be short and not too distressing, but all of the Licensor wants it to be precise and regulates the terms and conditions on the usage of the computer program from A to Z, as long as it can protect the interest and the intellectual property rights of Licensor. The solution to suit these interests is by composing a simple one, as long as it is not leaving behind the essential terms, which will be discussed later in the subsequent paragraph.

IV. The structure of Computer License Agreement
Like any other standard agreements, Computer License Agreements must contain the rights and obligations of the parties involved. But ones have to be carefully drafted, since the preference of each developers are different each other. To draft a good one, Licensor only has to pay attention to the crucial points and terms, which are:
a.	The Parties
The Parties are Licensor (the person who give the license) and Licensee (the person who ‘buy’ the license). There are also any possibilities on the presence of any third party on the license, such as the distibutor of the program or any other party.
b.	Copyright Notice
Every License should bear the copyright notice, to state the copyright author or the current copyright holder of the computer program. The notice can be written as follows:
“This Program is copyrighted by Anonymous in the year 2000”; or as simple as
“© 2000 Anonymous”
It is highly advised that a program should never be submitted, shown, or in this case licensed, without an appropriate copright notice. It will be better if the Licensor had already registered the copyright of computer program to designated Copyright Office in the designated country.
c.	The Non-exclusivity Statement of the License
It has to be stated, the non-exclusivity of the license. If the License is exclusive, the Licensor cannot take the most profit out of his Computer Program, merely because the License is only given to one Licensee only. There are still many licenses, drafted by computer program developers, that still mistakenly not including this clause, and for that purpose the license could be considered fail if the developers tried to sell the license to somebody else.
d.	License Statement
Without the existence of license statement, the license agreement cannot be considered as a license, because it is the ‘core’ of any License Agreement. The example of such statement is as follows: “Licensor hereby give Licensor the rights to install and to use only a single copy of the Program”.
e.	License Restriction Statement
“Licensor is not permitted to modify, to reverse engineer, and to distribute, this Program and …”. This statement is considered a necessity, considering to the Licensor’s preference to protect their propretiary rights, especially the moral and economic rights.
f.	Jurisdiction and Geographical Area of License
It has to be stated, the jurisdiction and the geographical area of the license will take place, based on the fact that even though that there are likely to be found, the standarized copyright laws in many countries, there are still any possibility of difference in each ones. The example of such statement: 
“This License is given under the laws and regulations of Republic Indonesia”; or 
“This License is valid only in the area of Republic Indonesia and in the region of South East Asian.”
g.	Warranties Statement and Disclaimer
Just like ordinary products sold to end-user consumers, Computer Programs are also the object of warranties statement and disclaimers, in order to give certainty to the end-user of ones, eg. virus or error free. Warranties statement in the License might appear like this:
“Licensor hereby states that the licensed program is not defected by any viruses or whatsoever resembles the symptom of virus”.
Disclaimer of computer programs, on the contrary, is not intended to give certainty, but merely to disclaim any loss and liabilities, whether it is the loss or liability of the Licensee or any other third party. Disclaimer in License can be varying, once again, regarding to the preference of each Licensor. The example of a simple disclaimer can be like this:
“This program is not intended for commercial use. If it is used for commercial purpose, Licensor will disclaim any loss or liabilities arise from such usage”.
h.	Termination of License
As well as any standard agreements, any license agreement has to state its terms of termination, whether the license will terminate after some subsequent years or terminate automatically if Licensee violates any of the License terms. The example of License Termination clause can be stated like these: 
“This License will be expired in 10 (ten) years after the purchase date”; or 
“This License will be terminated automatically if Licensee fail to perform the obligations stipulated in article ___, ___ and ___ of this License”.

V. Registration of License Agreement
As well as copyright, license agreements also could be registered in the Copyright Office. Nevertheless, it is not an obligatory to register ones. These informations regarding registration of license agreement could be found in the ICL, but unfortunately these are not in detail and the designated delegation laws and regulations are not yet to be made. The requirement is simple: it has to be in written form, whether it is published in digital or in printed, as long as it is submitted in printed form. The purpose of registering License Agreeement is to make possible ones being submitted in the court for evidence.