Comments, with reply, on ´Reverse-engineering someone else´s software: is it legal?´ by P. Samuelson

The commenter disagrees with the arguments in the above-titled article by P. Samuelson (ibid., vol.7, no.4, p.90-6, Jan. 1990) that reverse-engineering programs should be legal and that the unauthorized copies of the program created in decompilation are just ´incidental´ and thus do not infringe the program´s copyright. He also disagrees with Samuelson´s contention that there is a trend for the courts to find copyright infringement only where the program that results from the reverse engineering is substantially similar in expression to the decompiled program. He presents a detailed argument to support his viewpoint. Samuelson presents additional information is support of her position.<>