> They provide information on that site about when the Sun rises and sets and so on... but they also provide it under a disclaimer saying that this information is not suitable for use in court. If you need to know when the Sun rose or set for use in a court case, then you need an expert witness - because you don't actually just need the bits that say when the Sun rose. You need those bits to be Coloured with the Colour that allows them to be admissible in court, and the USNO doesn't provide that....It's a question of where the numbers came from.
That's just saying that your bits have to be authenticated/verified to be accepted as accurate.
Which makes sense and is entirely different than "your bits are illegal and your other identical bits are legal."
> your bits are illegal and your other identical bits are legal
That happens all the time though. If I rip a copy of a movie for backup purposes, that rip is legal. If I upload a torrent of it, the exact same bits on my disk are now illegal distribution of a copyrighted work.
If I am the artist who owns the copyright of the work, my bits can legally be redistributed.
The intent and legal status of the bits matters in a ton of cases.
