Whereas the Community's legal framework on the protection of computer programs can accordingly in the first instance be limited to establishing that Member States should accord protection to computer programs under copyright law as literary works and , further , to establishing who and what should be protected , the exclusive rights on which protected persons should be able to rely in order to authorize or prohibit certain acts and for how long the protection should apply.. This sentence is hard to understand. A simpler version with equivalent meaning is the following:
The Community legal framework for the protection of computer programs can thus initially be limited to stipulating in principle that the Member States grant copyright protection to computer programs as works of literature . It is also necessary to define who is entitled to protection and what is worthy of protection , and also to define the exclusive rights that those entitled to protection can assert in order to allow or forbid certain actions , as well as the duration of protection .