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Copyright doesn't just cover "exactly what's in their binaries", because of the derivative works statutes. If you translate a book from English to French, the
by daeken 15y ago
Copyright doesn't just cover "exactly what's in their binaries", because of the derivative works statutes. If you translate a book from English to French, the resulting book is still under the copyright of the original author; the same goes for taking disassembly -> decompiled C.
- Retric 15y agoSomething becomes a derivative work when excessive amounts of the source material structure comes from a copyrighted work. If you reverse engenear a program create a spec and have someone else code to that spec then copyright does not cover you. You could create an original novel that was not a derivative work by taking once sentience from every book in a library and trying to create a meaningful work of art from it. Doing the same thing using a single book would probably not fly.
- daeken 15y agoYep, that's why the concept of clean-room reversing exists, to get around the derivative work concepts. It's not the only option, but it's probably the safest.