Legal aspects of ReverseEngineering can be complicated. CristinaCifuentes has collected some information on http://www.csee.uq.edu.au/~cristina/cal.html (now somewhat dated) The ReengineeringForum organized a special session: see http://reengineer.org/legal/ [[http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise22.html][This page]] considers the issues related to how lawmakers decide whether one program is derived from another. Related to reverse engineering and the law is the issue of *freedom*: freedom to use and inspect software, artistic works, etc: * Lawrence Lessig's book [[http://www.easylum.net/book/view/32][Free Culture]] (on [[http://www.eAsylum.net][www.eAsylum.net]]) discusses issues such as copyright and whether it makes sense to grant exclusive rights to certain individuals and corporations for very long periods of time. * [[http://www.stallman.org][Richard Stallman]], founder of the [[http://www.gnu.org/fsf/fsf.html][Free Software Foundation]], holds the view that all software should be free. See also FreeSoftware and the [[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html][gnu.org philosophy]] page. * For several books on these issues (perhaps somewhat out of date), see Andrew Schulman's [[http://www.sonic.net/~undoc/bookstore.html#intprop][bookstore page]]. ---- See also: * UCITA, The Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act * http://www.ucitaonline.com/ * Licenses under this act usually include lines forbidding ReverseEngineering and DeCompilation. * DMCA, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: * http://anti-dmca.org/ * http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf * http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/ * The [[http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse][Chilling Effects]] website. * Cem Kaner's site at http://www.kaner.com, and also his page http://www.badsoftware.com. * Norman Richards' [[http://members.capmac.org/~orb/blog.cgi/tech/java/decompile_ethics.html][ethics of decompilation]] , [[http://www.javablogs.com/ViewEntry.jspa?id=49099][reverse engineering is not theft]], and [[http://members.capmac.org/~orb/blog.cgi/tech/java/obfuscate.html][obfuscation hubris]]. * The [[legality of decompilation]] ---- CategoryReverseEngineering