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pally under copyright law, 2 notwithstanding the fundamental principle that copyright cannot protect "any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery." 3 Congress implemented CONTU's recommendation in its 1980 amendments to federal copyright law. 4 In light of the computer software industry's relative youth and anticipated rapid growth, 5 CONTU's rough empirical judgment that copyright would best promote the invention, development, and diffusion of new and better software products was, by necessity, highly speculative. As CONTU recognized, it was impossible in 1978 to establish a precise line between copyrightable expression of computer programs and the uncopyrightable processes that they implement. 6 Yet the location of this line-referred to as the idea/expression distinction 7-was critical to the rough and highly speculative cost-benefit analysis that guided CONTU's recommendation. Drawing the line too liberally in favor of copyright protection would bestow strong monopolies over specific applications upon the first to write programs performing those applications and would thereby inhibit other creators from developing 2. See CONTU REPORT, supra note 1, at 1. But see id at 27-37 (Commissioner Hersey, dissenting) (arguing that "forcible wrenching" would be required to protect computer programs under the copyright law); iL at 37-38 (Commissioner Karpatkin, dissenting) (same); cf. id at 26-27 (Commissioner Nimmer, concurring) (warning that CONTU recommendations might take copyright law "beyond the breaking point," converting it into a general misappropriation law).

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