Delete comment from: Ken Shirriff's blog
The inclusion of copyrighted works would not make the blockchain illegal to use. It would be illegal for you to "use" those copyrighted works, or attempt to "sell them". Just as having a copyrighted work on the internet does not make it illegal for you to use the internet.
You do not have to download the chain to use the chain. That is a nice thing to have.
However, the "copyrighted works", are in parts, and would also require some form of "assembling". It is considered part of the "fair use act", to have portions of copyrighted works, where the complete works are not within direct use, in the copyrighted form. EG, Portions of the web contain portions of unseen copyrighted works, just by coincidence of randomness. Also, portions sum-up to whole works, through various sources, by way of backups and clouds.
Ecrypt the number 1 and it could result in the entire sourcecode of apple's iphone. If it did, (highly unlikely), it would not make you a lawbreaker for having the number 1 on your keyboard or computer.
Funny thing is, there is a copyrighted "prime number" that is a virus, if run as a program. There is also a prime number that executes and produces itself as a prime number. (However, that is a non-direct program which only works on a specific compiler that was made to find primes that execute themselves for self reproduction. Talk about inception-meets-the-matrix!)
I think "tiny-virus" (which is also self-replicating, or it was morphing, was also hidden in the block-chain.)
Jul 18, 2014, 2:51:23 AM