Disassembly is actually explicitly legalized for the purposes of reverse-engineering. It's just distributing any software that circumvents copy protections that

Disassembly is actually explicitly legalized for the purposes of reverse-engineering. It's just distributing any software that circumvents copy protections that's illegal, whether it's the result of a disassembly or not. People avoid disassembly in clean-room implementations out of an abundance of caution. If it's evident that the logic was ripped from disassembled executables, you'll have a harder time defending against patent claims or frivolous copyright claims. IANAL, but this is my understanding.