Doctorow: Reverse-engineering iOS for cross-platform compatibility triggers legal thickets
Cory Doctorow · Cory Doctorow and Joe Betts-Lacroix on Adversarial Interoperability · Y Combinator · Nov 27, 2019 · at 4:51
Author and activist Cory Doctorow explains how modern intellectual property and anti-hacking laws prevent startups from reverse engineering dominant software ecosystems.
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“So today, if you were to try and do this, like say you were to try and make Android devices first class citizens in on iOS environment, and in order to do so, you wanted to reverse engineer iOS and allow yourself to sideload in apps into iOS and also to support the iOS API under Android you would find yourself running up against software patents. Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims for circumvention. You'd find yourself running up against terms of service violations and probably tortious interference claims.”
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