intellectual-property
Are hash checksums of licensed software copyrighted?
<p>I want to distribute a list of MD5 file <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checksum" rel="nofollow noreferrer">checksums</a> of closed source software, in the form: </p>

<pre><code>&lt;checksum&gt; &lt;filename&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>The purpose of this list is to help forensic researchers to identify whether installations have been tampered with. </p>

<p>Am I allowed to do distribute such a list? Or does it depend on the given license? </p>

<p>Generalized, this question is about whether metadata is copyrighted <em>by the owner of the original IP</em>. It <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/1916/at-what-point-can-a-computer-generated-file-infringe-copyright/4366#4366">was partially asked here</a> but went unanswered.</p>

<p>Copyright protection only extends to things requiring a modicum of creativity to construct. A checksum-computing program can be so protected, but the results of running a file through such a program is entirely automatic (well, almost certainly is), and involves no creativity. So the number of not protected.</p>
