Re: Vicam driver appears to contain misappropriated code

[Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>]

Nathanael Nerode writes:

> In the Linux kernel,
> drivers/media/video/usbvideo/vicam.c
>
> contains *long* sequences which appear to have been lifted from some other
> driver without permission or attribution, probably by wire-sniffing.
>
> Not short sequences, really long ones.
>
> This is not just nondistributable, it's actually likely to be sued over: the
> company clearly didn't authorize this use.

Do you have any evidence to indicate that these byte streams contain
any copyrightable or otherwise protected content?  (It might be what
the U.S. Copyright Act calls a "useful article".)  Why do you say it
is non-distributable in the first place?

Michael Poole