I didn’t read (or listen, I don’t remember if it was a video) Lee Brimelow article on decompilation but I know he his not against it. In the same way, I also believe decompiling other’s work is a positive thing. I remember doing my first webpage (html) and to add cool stuff to it (nice javascript and strange html tags) all you had to do was to right click, choose view source and apply it in your context. Back then you were on your own, but what you would learn there you wouldn’t forget because you worked to extract the knowledge from the cryptic code. What you learned was then added to your toolbox; you could build better webpages. The entire internet grew from the view source feature.

I believe it should be the same with Flash. Every day you can see an awesome piece of creativity if you go to theFWA.com; sometimes you know how it is done, sometimes you don’t. This is the time where you should reverse engineer the work. Learn how they did it, how they solved certain problems. You should do so, not to replicate the piece, but to make it your own. Mix it with what you already know or give it a new twist; do something even better. That is how you should pay back.

The community, platform (Flash) would grow from this. People would start decompiling your work and even better pieces would be created. In the end, we would all win from this. Better creations means more confidence in the platform, more money invested into it (Adobe, web agencies) and more jobs.

If you think individually, you’ll only see the bad sides of decompiling, but if you open your mind and have a broader view, you’ll understand the benefits.