Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!bridge2!mips!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!netnews.upenn.edu!vax1.cc.lehigh.edu!sei.cmu.edu!krvw From: davidbrierley@lynx.northeastern.edu Newsgroups: comp.virus Subject: Viruses and Copyrights (Part 2) Message-ID: <0009.9003011504.AA12678@ge.sei.cmu.edu> Date: 1 Mar 90 02:08:43 GMT Sender: Virus Discussion List Lines: 53 Approved: krvw@sei.cmu.edu This is to continue my earlier posting on copyrights and viruses, based upon _How to Copyright Software_ by M.J. Salone. This posting is in regards to derivative works; for example, a disassembly of a virus made by someone other than the virus author. Congress defines the term 'derivative work'as "a work based upon one or more pre-existing works." [17 USC Sec. 101] A virus disassembly would probably fall under this definition because the opcodes are presumably from the actual virus even though the descriptive comments are the creative input of the person disassembling it. The above definition is likely to apply if a disassembly is considered to be a translation of the virus. The question then becomes "Is the disassembly author required to get the permission of the person who holds the copyright (usually the author) before publishing the disassembly?" The answer is, technically, yes. However, the absence of a copyright notice could be a legitimate excuse for assuming that the virus is public domain; this is backed up by the fact that viruses are designed to replicate themselves without consent of the user. Items within the public domain are free to be used and distributed in any way. Derivative works of public domain items can be copyrighted as long as the new material is substantial enough to be considered original. As far as disassemblies are concerned, the aforementioned descriptive comments are original material and can thus be copyrighted (i.e. the whole disassembly). Of course there is the question of whether-or-not a virus is considered to be properly copyrightable anyway, as other contributors to Virus-L have noted. Viruses install themselves into other programs, thus creating aunauthorized derivative works in the process! Please note that, if the above is untrue, then the disassembly can not be published without the consent of the virus' copyright holder. The copyright holder of a work solely has the right to publish derivative works based upon his/her original publication during the duration of the copyright. In my opinion the disassembly is copyrightable because the virus is in the public domain (since copyright notices are not normally found in viruses; not to mention that viruses may themselves be somewhat illegal). I I doubt that a virus author would sue for infringement because, as I said in my previous posting, that the virus author is likely to incrimminate himself by doing so. [Ed. For what it's worth, I believe that some versions of the Brain virus included a copyright notice in the ASCII header.] My next posting will contain a discussion on what rights are protected by a copyright. DISCLAIMER: The above are my opinions. I'm not a lawyer :-) Please do not take this material to be the law.