Has a programmer made a crime if a program copies data too many times?
<p>I saw that in Finnish law, one can make a few copies for his own use. Suppose that a junior programmer downloads a dataset for his own use from legal source. But then he makes a mistake in programming and program makes several copies of the data to his computer memory. Has the programmer made an illegal copy of the data?</p>

<p>If the programmer has permission to download the dataset then he is doing so under some kind of license. That license will specify the terms of what is permissible.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.finlex.fi/en/laki/kaannokset/1961/en19610404.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Finnish copyright law</a> includes a specific term for databases:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(4)  Whoever  has  a  right  to  use  a  database  may  make  copies  of  it  and  perform  all  other  acts necessary for accessing the database and for normal use of its contents. (250/1998)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So the programmer can create as many copies on his own computer as he likes.</p>

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