Compiled object code of a bunch of code you didn't write. I don't know why programmers are so eager to forget that copyright is not at all about what something is, and all about where it came from. It'd be hard to assert that you hold copyright over object code compiled from code you didn't write!
>> And very much of intellectual property law comes down to rules regarding intangible attributes of bits - Who created the bits? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Are they copies of other bits?
Or is the fact that compiled code enjoys copyright protection, even though it is not human generated, evidence that being generated by a human is not overly important for copyright protection?
An mp3 encoding of a wav file of a copyrighted song is still copyrighted, despite those exact bits never having existed before, and being created entirely by a computer.
