Another example could be clean room design. Essentially reverse engineering code without using copyrighted code. Having someone on a team who has reviewed leaked code could compromise a project and make it more likely to be hit with a copyright claim if they slip up.

This has been an issue/topic of debate with multiple open source projects such as ReactOS.

I could be slightly off here but this is my understanding of it. I hope someone corrects me if I'm off base.

[–] dillekant@slrpnk.net 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah this was something else I was thinking of. I'm not exactly sure about the mechanics of the infringement here, but it seems like simply knowing a thing taints you for producing a work. I guess it's more about ease of proving?

[–] veniasilente@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

The key here is that it taints you, not the thing. Just because the source code of eg.: Acrobat is known because the source is leaked, that does not make the source code of an alternative instantly illegal.