Programs for computers and databases are copyright subject matters. Thereof, protection does not extend over ideas and principles laying at the base of programs or databases or any element thereof, including ideas and principles of organizing interfaces and algorithms, and also program languages.

Programs are provided legal protection as literary works, databases as collections.

Copyright covers any programs and databases, both published and not published, presented in an objective form, independent of their material carrier, purpose and value.

The right to a program or database arises as a result of the creation thereof. Deposition, registration or conformation with other formalities are not required for the recognition and implementation of copyright for a program or database.

The operation of copyright begins from the moment the program or database is created and continues during the life of the author and for 50 years after his death.

A copyright owner has the exclusive right to implement and authorize the implementation of the following actions:

• issuance of a program or database;
• reproduction of a program or database (fully or in part) in any form, in any manner;
• distribution of a program or database;
• modification of a program or database, including the conversion of a program or database from one language to another;
• other use of a program for a computer or a database.

Property rights for a program or database created in the process of fulfilling official duties or on an order from an employer belong to the employer if other provisions are not stipulated in the contact between the employer and the author.

A program and database during the term of validity of the copyright may be registered in the Patent Office.

Unauthorized use of a program or database, including import into the Russian Federation of copies of the program or database, produced without the authorization of their owners, is an infringement of copyright.

Copyright protection for a program or database is effected by:

• acknowledgment of the rights;
• restoration of the status existing prior to infringement of copyright and termination of the actions infringing copyright or creating a threat of infringement;
• compensation for sustained damages, the amount of which includes the sum of the profits unjustifiably received by the infringer;
• payment by the infringer of compensation in an amount determined at the discretion of a court, arbitration court or tribunal and equal to from 5000 times to 50000 times the amount set by law for the minimum monthly salary (the minimum monthly salary today is about 15 U.S.A. dollars) in cases of infringement with the aim of gaining a profit instead of compensating losses;
• execution of other actions provided by legislative acts and related to copyright protection.

As in the case of topologies, a court may take a decision to confiscate counterfeit copies of the program or database,and also materials and equipment used for their reproduction,and to destroy them or transfer them to the income of the federal bud- get or to the plaintiff as part of the compensation for damages.

Copies of programs or databases, produced, reproduced, distributed, sold, imported or otherwise used or designated for use in infringement of the rights of the authors of the program for computers or database and other owners, may be seized.

The issuance under one's name of a computer program or database belonging to somebody else or the illegal reproduction or distribution of such works results in criminal responsibility.