Can I publish a book with hashes of common passwords? The title says it all. There are already thousands of online websites where you input a character string, and it would output the MD5 hash (or other) or the password. I was wondering about the legality of publishing a book with the, lets say, 100 or 1000 most commonly used passwords, together with their hash values. Note that the book does not endorse/encourage password hacking in any way, it would just be a &quot;hash table&quot; of sorts, combining one kind of information with another. So would it be legal to publish such a book?
Yes (in most jurisdictions), but why should you? There might be some interests in publishing the 1,000 most common passwords, e.g. to support security awareness lectures (or to build rainbow tables for nefarious purposes), but anybody who wants to hash them with a specific algorithm can do so easily. It is probably easier to type the passwords from a printed book and to hash them on the computer than it is to type the hashed passwords -- bad passwords would tend to be easy to type. That being said, computer crime laws are generally lagging behind the state of the art, or they are overly broad, so it might be illegal in some places as a &quot;hacking tool&quot; ...
No, John may not lawfully publish such a book in such a way What John wants to do is not lawful. It would infringe on the copyright on both the 1940 original, and on the 1955 translation. Both of those are still in copyright under the laws of France, the UK, and the US. Someone owns those copyrights: some person or business or other entity. If the owner has no legal heirs, in most jurisdictions the property escheats to the government (in the US to the state government). In the case of a company, its assets will be sold or handed over to some entity. But they will not become ownerless, any more than real estate will become ownerless when the owner dies or the owning company is dissolved. It is possible that the owner does not realize that s/he owns these rights. But if John publishes his book, then owner might then realize the rights that s/he holds. The owner could demand payment, or sue for damages. Under US law the damages could include any economic loss that the owner has incurred plus any profits that John or his publisher have made. John and his publisher would both be liable for these damages. As a result, no publisher is likely to be willing to publish John's book. If John self-publishers, he incurs the risk of such demands and suit. In some countries (such as the UK) there are legal procedures fore dealing with such &quot;orphan works&quot;. In those countries one can register with a government agency, and obtain permission to use the work after a search has revealed no owner, paying a rate set by law. But there is no such provision in the US. There, John must either not publish, or gamble that no owner will appear and make demands he cannot afford to meet.
Under US law, words of a language are facts, which are not protected by copyright. Only creative expressions are protected. There are various aspects of a dictionary which are capable of protection, such as the pairing of a word and a translation, the organization of an entry (headword, POS information, the structure of sets of entries according to a grammatical analysis as in an Arabic dictionary). The order of presentation of the words could be protected (relevant for languages with complex morphology where words are grouped according to roots, rather than strict alphabetization). Finally, the criteria of selection for inclusion might involve a smidgen of creativity, but there is no creativity involved in publishing &quot;all of the words that I collected&quot;.
The author of the book may have a copyright, because he created a new piece of work from the/a original work. For example, by translating it in another language or in a modernized language, by rearranging the content, by adding images or commentaries etc. You will therefore have to find a book or other source that is not or not anymore copyrighted.
Yes That is very simple - copyright is an exclusive right that starts automatically with the creation of a copyrightable work. The default situation is that the author has an exclusive rights to make copies of the work and derivative works. If the code is published somewhere by the author but the author has not said anything about its licence or copyrights, then the default situation applies - you need permission and you don't have it, so it's not legal for you to distribute their copyrighted works. They have the right to just publish it somewhere, others don't. If you try to contact the author and they don't say anything and ignore you, then the default situation applies - you need permission and you don't have it, so it's not legal for you to distribute their copyrighted works. If it's impossible to find the author (e.g. I have certain cases with literary works where it's not clear who inherited the rights after the author died), then the default situation applies - you need permission and you don't have it, so it's not legal for you to distribute their copyrighted works. That being said, certain forms of reuse (recreating ideas, learning from them, etc) would not be a copyright violation. But in general the situation with the author not saying anything is almost the same as the author explicitly stating "all rights reserved, you're not allowed to do anything, violators will be shot" - some specific uses are allowed even against author's wishes (e.g. 'fair use' clauses) but everything that needs their permission really does need their explicit permission.
Yes, except for the part where you say &quot;thus&quot;. Copyright protection isn't limited to published works, though in the past this was the case with US law. Current US law defines publication as the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication. Web distribution is one way to distribute a protected work. The distinction between published and unpublished works matters in terms of registration requirements, it figures into the question of the nationality of the author, the duration of protection for a work for hire and (pseudo)anonymous works, as well as the duration of protection for works created before January 1, 1978 but first published between then and January 1, 2003, and so on. The US Copyright office provides guidance that derives from court cases, and they have this to say about published vs. unpublished. They give as an example of publication (&quot;Offering to Distribute Copies or Phonorecords to a Group of Persons&quot;) Publication occurs when copies of a photograph are offered to clients, including but not limited to newspapers, magazines, agencies, wire services, and websites with a license permitting further distribution or display of the photograph. also An offer by the copyright owner on a public website to purchase and download an app that they developed and made accessible on that website constitutes publication of that app. German copyright law makes mention of &quot;publication&quot; as well, for instance The right of publication and of exploitation of the work accrues jointly to the joint authors; alterations to the work shall be permissible only with the consent of the joint authors. However, a joint author may not refuse his consent to publication, exploitation or alteration contrary to the principles of good faith. Each joint author shall be entitled to assert claims arising from violations of the joint copyright; he may, however, demand performance only to all of the joint authors. §6 says that (1) A work shall be deemed to have been published when it has been made available to the public with the consent of the rightholder. (2) A work shall be deemed to have been released when copies of the work have been offered, with the rightholder’s consent, to the public or brought to the market after their production in sufficient quantity. An artistic work shall also be deemed to have been released when the original or a copy of the work has been made permanently available to the public with the consent of the rightholder. One would have to inquire into the specifics of German law to know if &quot;putting one copy on a website&quot; constitutes being brought to the market after production in sufficient quantity.
Copyright includes authorization of derivative works such as translations, so you must have permission of the copyright holder to create a translation. You could be sued for creating the unauthorized translation for your friend. If you attempt to further distribute the book, the chances of getting sued increase substantially. That path probably includes your legal obligation to foot the bill for the publisher and distributor having to defend themselves in court, since your contract with the publisher or distributor probably includes an indemnification clause saying that you indemnify them (pay their costs) against damages for your infringement. So your are at risk, and it increases if you do anything to distribute the translation.
You are correct that facts in general are not protected by copyright, and most raw data are facts. However, a collection of data may be protected by copyright as to its selection and organization. A use which copies such selection might possibly be copyright infringement. If data constitutes a trade secret it may be protected as such, and &quot;improper&quot; access might be unlawful. This would not apply to publicly available data or collections of data. If, to access a data set, one must sign or agree to a contract, that contract may limit the use of such data. Again, this would not apply to most publicly available data.