> code is not data
IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. But it doesn't make sense to me. How do you distinguish code from data? Isn't the whole point of code that it is treated (by the machine) as both code and data?
Suppose I make a "copyright-protected creative work", for example a melody, and then encode that as a database table?
Suppose I have a list of population statistics? Suppose those population statistics have been ingeniously contrived (e.g. by encoding, ordering or whatever), so that given the right interpreter or compiler, the logic of a copyright software work can be replicated exactly, using the list as code?
It's hard to imagine a list of statistics that can be read by a human as easily as he can read code; but that doesn't matter. It's hard to read machine-code too; but copying machine-code without permission is infringing.
It doesn't help that copyright law has drifted over the years, and that despite international conventions, the law varies from place to place. USA and EU see copyright differently. Commenters here are not declaring whose copyright law they are referring to.