@ 17/06/2004 21:21 : wrote Josh Triplett :
No, mechanical translations are not derived works: THEY "ARE" THE ORIGINAL WORK. Sorry about the shouting, but this misconception (that they are not protected) is beginning to crop up here.
Indeed. For that matter, disassemblers perform mechanical translations, so if the disassembled code were not a derived work of the executable, that would greatly aid most reverse-engineering efforts.
- Josh Triplett
I get some software in binary form. Let's call it w0. I disassemble it. Let's call it w1. I put comments in w1. Let's call it w2. I assemble it again in a new binary. w3.
w0 == w1.
They are one and the same.
w2 is derivative of w0. Which is the same as saying: w2 is derivative of w1.
w3 == w2. So w3 is derivative of w0. or w1, if you want.
-- br,M
