this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Is it possible to create something where knowing about the thing constitutes copyright infringement?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Another example could be clean room design. Essentially reverse engineering code without using copyrighted code. Having someone on a team who has reviewed leaked code could compromise a project and make it more likely to be hit with a copyright claim if they slip up.

This has been an issue/topic of debate with multiple open source projects such as ReactOS.

I could be slightly off here but this is my understanding of it. I hope someone corrects me if I'm off base.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah this was something else I was thinking of. I'm not exactly sure about the mechanics of the infringement here, but it seems like simply knowing a thing taints you for producing a work. I guess it's more about ease of proving?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The key here is that it taints you, not the thing. Just because the source code of eg.: Acrobat is known because the source is leaked, that does not make the source code of an alternative instantly illegal.