Comments, with reply, on 'Reverse-engineering someone else's software: is it legal?' by P. Samuelson
V. Siber · IEEE Software · 1990
The commenter disagrees with the arguments in the above-titled article by P. Samuelson (ibid., vol.7, no.4, p.90-6, Jan. 1990) that reverse-engineering programs should be legal and that the unauthorized copies of the program created in decompilation are just 'incidental' and thus do not infringe the program's copyright. He also disagrees with Samuelson's contention that there is a trend for the courts to find copyright infringement only where the program that results from the reverse engineering is substantially similar in expression to the decompiled program. He presents a detailed argument to support his viewpoint. Samuelson presents additional information is support of her position.>