- Is reverse engineering illegal? In the U.S., Section 103(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) (17 USC § 1201 (f) - Reverse Engineering) specifically states that it is legal to reverse engineer and circumvent the protection to achieve interoperability between computer programs (such as information transfer between applications).20 mar 2013 (Google search preview)
- EFF:Coders’ Rights Project Reverse Engineering FAQ https://www.eff.org/it/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq :
What U.S. Copyright Law Doctrines Allow Reverse Engineering? ^
Permission: a copyright owner can always give you permission to make copies (perhaps in a license agreement), and depending on the nature of the permission, it may authorize reverse engineering. For example, if a license agreement authorizes you to “use” the software, and it does not expressly prohibit reverse engineering, that may be all the permission you need.
Fair Use: The fair use doctrine allows users to make unauthorized copies in certain circumstances. Courts have found that reverse engineering for interoperability, for example, can be a fair use.
- in US and outside: https://lwn.net/Articles/134642/ (2005) Us, Japan, Australia, UE, Uk,
- UE art. 6 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32009L0024&from=EN#d1e361-16-1
Many authors simply talks about fair use exemption because software is subject to copyright.
Some cases are in Curia online database.