23-16038 Rimini v. Oracle EFF et al amicus brief

Both the use of FormGen’s tool and the interoperability of the files were relevant only because those files were designed to continue the same story. [...] This Court reversed, finding that “in light of the public policies underlying the [Copyright] Act,” disassembly of “a copyrighted computer program in order to gain an understanding of the unprotected functional elements of the program” was a fair use “when the person seeking the understanding has a legitimate reason for doing so and when no other means of access to the unprotected elements exists.. [...] 18 Case: 23-16038, 03/11/2024, ID: 12867999, DktEntry: 20, Page 25 of 32 Significantly, this Court excused the copying incidental to Accolade’s reverse engineering of Sega’s products because the purpose of the reverse engineering was to uncover the unprotectable software interfaces necessary to achieve interoperability. [...] The repeated running of the Sony BIOS caused the making of numerous temporary copies of the BIOS in the computer’s random- access memory. [...] But the district court was not correct, and Amici urge this Court to follow decades of clear precedent, rather than the district court’s misunderstanding of the nature of the right to prepare derivative works.