[General Topics] vijay555:
Guys:

Copyright is the right of the creator or right owner with regards to a particular Work.

You will have copyright in pretty much

anything

you create, be it a scribble on a table mat, an opera or a literary work. People should not misunderstand the extent of the legal rights that copyright gives – it does NOT cover ideas, methods, techniques etc. It will protect the expressed work as a whole, so the whole book, opera, painting etc. There will almost certainly be copyright in any one’s source code, program, icons, and whatever they’ve created as a work.

Now: a copyright lasts for a long time, and gives the creator a fairly strong right against copying. However, a copyright will not protect abstract ideas or methods implemented in that work. For that, we have patents. Patents are specifically designed for the protection of things like innovative algorithms, techniques, methodologies. However, patents are typically confined to a process or technique, and you almost certainly won’t want to protect a whole “work”, like a computer program (as lawyers like to make patents as generic and wide as possible, to sue as many people as possible).

Thus: as far as I can see, every Tom, **** and Harry will have copyright in the works (ie unlockers) they have created.

It doesn’t appear that any of the programs being discussed copy each other

directly

, equivalent to ripping the cover off a book and writing “Harry Potter 6, by Vijay555” on it. Copying is pretty much that, re-expressing, almost exactly, the same whole work. Yes, there are exceptions for fair use etc, but we don’t even need to go there, because, re-implementation of algorithms and methodologies is the domain of patents, remember.

So, who here has a patent on their unlocker? Who patented the Jump to RAM technique? Knowing the test of patents, that it normally requires an “innovative” and “non obvious” step, it appears that jumping to a code block in memory would be fairly obvious to a skilled technician in that field, which again, is the test for the “obviousness” of the technique. So, it’s unlikely the Jump to RAM technique would be patentable, but again, if anyone here has the patent on the technique, let me know.

Where does that leave us?

- The jump to ram technique is open to re-implementation by anyone who wants to, as there is no patent protecting it, AFAIK.

- No one’s work has been copied in its entirety or nearly so, therefore no breach of copyright.

- Reverse engineering for these works does not appear to have been expressly prohibited by Florin/imei-check, and may not been prohibitable in these circumstances in any event.

- Libel/defamation, calling someone a thief etc, on a privately owned, but publicly accessible website, can lead to big legal problems and a hefty legal bill [have a look here to see a case I helped take to court for Don King, http://casselsbrock.com/publicationdetail.asp?aid=780#article2]

Reverse engineering for commercial gain is likely to be both legally and morally questionable, so if you are taking someone’s work and effort and tacking you own name and bank account on it, you probably deserve some of the consequences that can follow from that.

People shouldn’t over exaggerate their claims if they can’t stand by them.

If you are using someone else’s work, you have to respect the author’s rights. However, if you’re merely using it for inspiration, a nod in his direction is polite.

I suggest you all have a read of this:

http://www.chillingeffects.org/reverse/faq.cgi

V