This question is directly related to my answer to a question on the main site: http://android.stackexchange.com/q/11593/981

The timeline for the sake of relevancy: The questioner was looking for a way to make a Skype video call from his phone (EVO, not supported by Skype's video feature) to a computer. I saw a thread on XDA which was discussing the idea with the rather vague title of "Skype with Video", and I left a comment containing a link to that thread. As it turns out, there is a Skype .apk in that XDA thread which has been modified to allow video calls on unsupported phones. The link to said .apk has been subsequently [edited into my answer][1].

My concern: In the United States, the modified .apk is almost certainly a copyright violation under DMCA law. It may also fall under international laws, but I'm not really sure (I also will not comment on other countries as I am not familiar enough with their laws). Being that both Skype and Stack Exchange are based in the US, I'm not sure that international law would really fall into play anyhow.

The edit which includes the link was added, then rolled back (by Al Everett), then added again. Since there seems to be something of a gray area here, I wanted to explicitly pose this question: Where do we stand on modified .apk files? For that matter, does anyone know where the *law* stands on these files? Patching the file presumably required decompilation of the .apk, which is why I believe it would constitute a copyright violation in countries with DMCA-like laws.

Related Meta question: http://meta.android.stackexchange.com/q/278/981

  [1]: http://android.stackexchange.com/revisions/11596/2