> And then this people used reverse engineering techniques to build a bios that did the same as the working one they had, but all they could see was electrical

> And then this people used reverse engineering techniques to build a bios that did the same as the working one they had, but all they could see was electrical currents coming out of the pins etc. > So I think copyright law would allow you to look at a web page and, without viewing the source rebuild the page from scratch (ie box is red and 12 pixels wide) What I don't exactly see is, how the hell do you prove you didn't just rip off the original and pretended you never saw it? In fact if you knew what the original was it would be easier to use different methods that would otherwise likely be duplicated because people go for the obvious solution first.