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Those who see a distinction between seismic data and a
computer program may also assert that, although the inextricable
connection between both types of information to its respective
tangible residences may be analogous, seismic data does not exist
as property apart from its physical manifestation, whereas a
computer program does exist as property apart from the disks and
tapes upon which it resides. In other words, the argument is
that if the seismic data tapes and film are destroyed prior to
reproduction, nothing remains, but if the only copy of a computer
program's source code that has not yet been converted to
executable code is destroyed, the computer program still exists
as intellectual property. First, that assertion fails to
recognize a basic condition of copyright protection, that a work
must be fixed in a “tangible medium of expression”; ideas alone
are not protected. See 17 U.S.C. sec. 102 (1994). In addition,
the coexistence of two distinct property interests, the right to
a specific copy of a computer program and the copyright
underlying that computer program, should not affect the tangible
or intangible character of either. In any event, there is no
principled distinction between seismic data and a computer
program in terms of the existence of either as property apart
from its physical manifestation.
In sum, seismic data embodied in field tapes as electronic
impulses are analogous to a computer program embodied in tapes
and disks as a master source code written in COBOL, FORTRAN, or
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