RE: hacker copyrights was [RE: telnetd exploit code]

["Eric D. Williams" <eric () infobro com>]

Greg,

With all do respect it is clear the case especially the Godwin ref. are not 
directly material to the issue / topic here but rather the application of the 
principles herein as you discussed.  I am not clear on what your allusion to 
self-propagating worm is here, I believe this thread started where a question 
was asked whether a cracker would be protected from scrutiny by copyright.  Be 
that as it may I appreciate your arguments and they are clarifying to the 
subject.

Eric

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On Wednesday, July 25, 2001 5:25 PM, Greg A. Woods [SMTP:woods () weird com] 
wrote:
> [ On Wednesday, July 25, 2001 at 14:22:43 (-0400), Eric D. Williams wrote: ]
> > Subject: hacker copyrights was [RE: telnetd exploit code]
> >
> > Re: the lack of legal backing here are a number of links that appear
> > relevant
> > to the question (do you violate copyright by publishing hacker code,
> > discovered
> > subsequent to intrusion?).  Indeed it appears that the law is fuzzy on this
> > one
> > concerning copyright and intellectual property.  But,  given the
> > circumstance
> > that a listing or binary of the aformentioned code can not be deterined as
> > authorized in the first case - the intrusion itself is illegal, it appears
> > it
> > can not pass the copyright or intellectual property tests.
> >
> > Refs with USC refs:
http://www.eff.org/Publications/Mike_Godwin/phrack_riggs_neidorf_godwin.artic
> > le
> > Ref with USC footnotes: http://www.netatty.com/copyright.html
>
> Ah, no, the case discused by Godwin in that article is entirely the
> opposite of what was suggested initially in this thread -- those cases
> revolved around a trade secret document stolen and distributed by a
> crackers, not around code written and distributed by the crackers.
>
> Not only that but it would seem clear that anyone receiving a copy of a
> self-propogating worm or virus explicitly released by its author (or
> anyone authorised by the author) is in possesion of a legally obtained
> copy of that code -- it matters not that the foisting of the copy onto
> your machine was itself probably an illegal act.  Once the copies are
> distributed they're the legal property of whomever has "legally"
> acquired them, no matter how illegal the actions of the distributor were
> in creating or "releasing" them.
>
> Some of what is said about case law in the USA does actually clearly
> suggest copyright on hacker-owned code is in fact not violated by anyone
> analyzing said code The Court in one of those cases even went so far as
> to say (here is the Court speaking, as quoted by Godwin):
>
>       "The copyright owner, however, holds no ordinary chattel.  A
>       copyright, like other intellectual property, comprises a series
>       of carefully defined and carefully delimited interests to which
>       the law affords correspondingly exact protections."
>
> Taken in context with copyright law this declaration and other related
> ones made by the same court suggests (at least to me, a non-lawyer) that
> a copyright owner who has explicitly caused his or her work to be freely
> and anonymously distributed (as is most certainly the case with a virus
> or worm, etc.) has in fact explicitly given up on all rights to the
> content of that work as a trade secret or other form of private
> intellectual property.  I.e. as I say above the holder of any copy of
> such code has become a legal owner of that copy and has every right to
> read it, run it (so long as they don't as a result commit other offences
> such as allowing it to propogate to unauthorised hosts), change it,
> destroy it, etc.; just as you can do with a legally obtained copy of a
> book.
>
> Furthermore under most copyright laws it is my opinion this would even
> imply the owner has implicitly relinquished all right to control further
> free and anonymous redistribution of the work (anonymous distribution
> implies that further distribution cannot be detected or proven).
>
> Regardless of my latter point though the rules of "fair use" under
> most(all?) copyright laws will still permit anyone in possession of a
> legally obtained copy of the code (eg. one obtained directly from the
> author or from his or her directly or indirectly authorised agents) to
> analyze it and to publish the results of that analysis.
>
> --
>                                                       Greg A. Woods
>
> +1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods () acm org>     <woods () robohack ca>
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