The article posits software as discourse due to its intimate role in constructing knowledge and identity in the digital era.
Software is used to construct meaning.
This leads on to discussion of the funtion of information law in regulating this new form of discourse or communicative mechanism. Part 1 compared the United States' and the European statutes and policies relating to copyrightability of software. Part 2 analyses and compares the methods used by American and European Courts in copyright infringement cases. It proposes a test in order for European Judges to determind whether American case law can be used in Europe. Attracting foreign capital, by conferring more intellectual property rights than foreigners enjoy at home, has always been the policy of Hong Kong under British and now Chinese sovereignty.