What Legal Doctrines Are Most Likely To Affect Reverse Engineering?
Five areas of United States law are particularly relevant for computer scientists engaging in reverse engineering: Copyright law and fair use, codified at 17 U.S.C. 107; Trade secret law; The anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), codified at 17 U.S.C. section 1201; Contract law, if use of the software is subject to an End User License Agreement (EULA), Terms of Service notice (TOS), Terms of Use notice (TOU), Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), developer agreement or API agreement; and The Electronic Communications Privacy Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. 2510 et. seq. This FAQ does not address international or foreign law.
