Ethics: Thief vs. Student

Hello all.

I have an ethical question for all you programmers out there. Is it ethical to decompile other peoples’ .SWFs to learn how they did something? Or is it theft? I mean, if the purpose is to understand the underlying interface, not just to completely copy someone else’s work. And this is limited to code only, not image s or sounds.

What do you think?

-Brekk