Software: copyright, cybersecurity and the ARTI Agreement between the United States and Argentina
The reciprocal trade and investment agreement between the United States and the Republic of Argentina signed in February 2026, known as ARTI, is not limited to trade liberalization or the removal of barriers. It also offers a legal and institutional signal on a central matter for the contemporary economy: the effective protection of copyright in the digital environment and, in particular, of software works.
Although the text of the Agreement is broader and covers other issues, this article focuses on copyright over software, in its economic, technological and security dimensions. Today the everyday use of technology makes it impossible to treat software protection as a marginal matter or as a mere dispute between rights holders and users: its treatment directly affects innovation, market trust, the security of systems and, ultimately, the daily life of people, companies and institutions.
In Argentina, the regulatory turning point was Law 25,036, enacted and promulgated in late 1998, which amended Law 11,723 and expressly incorporated computer programs —in source and object code— among the works protected by copyright. The reform aligned the country with an already consolidated international trend: programs had to be protected as works, not only because of their economic value, but because of their structural function in a technological society.
The basis for protection is not limited to the convenience of the rights holder. Modern legal systems protect intellectual creations because they understand that the absence of protection would harm not only the individual author, but the entire community. If every creation could be appropriated, reproduced and exploited without limits, the incentives to invest time, capital, knowledge and risk in producing new works would be drastically reduced. The harm would be transferred, with even greater impact, to society: fewer books, fewer tools, fewer developments, less innovation.
The author's protection ends up extending to the user and to the market. When the ecosystem assumes that the lawful use of software requires payment of the corresponding rights, it not only respects the creator's position: it sustains the cycle that finances maintenance, updates, support, vulnerability remediation and new developments. The user who paid for the license is one of the main beneficiaries, because they receive more reliable, more secure and more evolved products over time.
Software occupies a unique place: it is a protected work and, at the same time, functional infrastructure of the modern world. Around it are organized tasks of design, production, management, healthcare, education, communication, public administration and security. Legally protecting software is, therefore, protecting the social process that makes such progress possible. It is not a concession to the market: it is a necessary condition for development.
This idea appears clearly in international law. Article 10.1 of the TRIPS Agreement provides that computer programs, whether in source or object code, must be protected as literary works. The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) of 1996 deepened that approach by specifically addressing works in the digital environment, including technological protection measures and rights management information.
However, domestic protection is not enough. Software is an intensely transnational asset: it can be conceived in one country, developed by teams distributed across several jurisdictions, hosted in another, licensed from a fourth and marketed practically worldwide. Illicit copying, unauthorized distribution and cross-border circulation of pirated software not only harm the rights holder: they distort competition, discourage investment and especially punish SMBs, which lack the financial scale to absorb the sustained impact of piracy.
The use of non-genuine or tampered software projects risks that exceed mere license infringement. If a medical practice operates with pirated software, what may be compromised is sensitive patient information: medical records, diagnoses, studies, contact and billing data. The attack does not only harm the operating entity; it impacts all those whose privacy and security depend on the integrity of that digital environment. An infected device, moreover, becomes a platform for new intrusions and a node of malicious networks that amplify harm to third parties. Piracy ceases to be an act of individual misuse and becomes a systemic security problem.
That is why, in the current debate, software copyright and cybersecurity can no longer be thought of separately. Legal protection of software also contributes to the security of systems, the preservation of privacy and the reduction of attack surfaces. Not every infringement leads to a security incident, but the general weakening of the legitimate market favors more opaque, less auditable and therefore more vulnerable environments.
In that framework, ARTI deserves careful reading. Article 2.6 provides that Argentina must guarantee a robust standard of intellectual property protection and ensure effective civil, criminal and customs enforcement systems. The article adds that these systems must combat and deter infringement also in the online environment, and that Argentina must prioritize effective criminal and customs enforcement actions against copyright and trademark infringement. Although the provision does not refer exclusively to software, its impact on software works is immediate: digital infringement ceases to be a collateral issue and takes a central place in the obligation assumed.
A footnote to that same provision clarifies that, for the purposes of the Agreement, intellectual property protection includes technological protection measures and rights management information. The clarification is of extraordinary importance: modern software exploitation rests on licenses, activations, access controls, authentication mechanisms and other technical systems designed to preserve the integrity of the work and its exploitation. ARTI expressly recognizes that digital copyright is not exhausted in the abstract prohibition of copying; it also requires protection against the circumvention of technological barriers and against the manipulation of information that identifies, manages or licenses content.
Conclusion. Software copyright protection can no longer be presented as a sectoral matter or as a discussion limited to the balance between licensor and user. Software is an essential intellectual creation for productivity, innovation, management, healthcare, education and security. Its protection, therefore, safeguards much more than an individual patrimonial interest.
The Argentine experience, especially since Law 25,036, shows that the legal system understood early on the need to give software an explicit place within the copyright regime. International law consolidated that solution and projected it into the digital environment. ARTI is part of that trajectory and adds something more: it highlights, with particular clarity, that the discussion on software and copyright today intersects with cybersecurity, privacy protection, institutional resilience and international interest in digital trade.