I’ve been having a blast playing an online multiplayer mod of ocarina of time for the PC port that was made from a decompilation a while back. I’m excited to see the fun stuff that is made from other decompilation projects like this.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Distributing the reverse engineered source code is probably infringement however. Probably not if it actually reverse engineered (with a firewall) but that's not what they are doing (i.e. decompilation isn't' reverse engineering)
Decompilation is an essential (although not mandatory for some cases) part of reverse-engineering. As for decompilation projects that have only reconstructed source code and no game media assets, it's probably fair use.
It is not fair use in itself: https://courses.cs.duke.edu/cps182s/fall02/cscopyright/Copyr...
Decompiling object code produces an approximation of the original source code. Merely making this rough copy would usually violate the copyright holder's exclusive rights, even if the person who decompiled the code only used it as a preliminary step in making another work.
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Distributing the reverse engineered source code is probably infringement however. Probably not if it actually reverse engineered (with a firewall) but that's not what they are doing (i.e. decompilation isn't' reverse engineering)
Decompilation is an essential (although not mandatory for some cases) part of reverse-engineering. As for decompilation projects that have only reconstructed source code and no game media assets, it's probably fair use.
Decompilation might be fine, but distributing the results isn't a part of reverse-engineering.
Fair use is limited scope. One of the first criteria is use. Fair use is generally reserved for education, criticism, comment, and news. At best you could say this is education, but even then one of the other criteria for fair use is the amount of the work published. If you're teaching or criticizing this code, the whole codebase is probably too much. Some snippets would be fine like you would see in code reviews or reviews of books and such.
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many Nintendo games (including Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) have been decompiled and have not been attacked by the Nintendo Ninjas: https://github.com/zeldaret/oot The more pressing legal concern here is the use of game assets, which these decompilations work around by requiring the user to provide a ROM to extract them first.
I don't think that's a real legal defense. Code is just as subject to copyright as game assets (why wouldn't it be? it's just another kind of game asset), and the whole extracting assets thing making decompilations free from copyright infringement that gets bandied about is complete armchair lawyering. It's only by Nintendo's good graces these are still allowed to be hosted on GitHub.
There are fair use carveouts for reverse engineering code to, for example, make it usable on different platforms. I don’t believe this kind of decompile project has ever had its day in court and the laws are written in such a way that the outcome is at least somewhat likely to be skewed in favor of reverse engineering. Nintendo may be avoiding bringing suit because they don’t think they could win or that the judgement might make expanded rights explicit encouraging more of this kind of thing.
EFF on the topic https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's nearly trivial to get a file copy of the game disc if you own a Wii and the game. No copyright infringement needed to get the assets. Even still, the reverse engineering part to put the executable code into C++ is definitely copyright infringement.
Reverse engineering isn't copyright infringement. Distributing the reverse engineered source code is probably infringement however.
Reverse engineering without consent _is_ copyright infringement. As in order to obtain a copy of the software you likely signed an EULA which will likely have the standard anti-reverse engineering verbiage which you'll be violating, therefore you are copying (whether for your personal enjoyment or not) the works of the author without permission.
There are a series of well documented exceptions... normally found in copyright law. (And this most definitely does not fall into one of them).
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#36I’ve been having a blast playing an online multiplayer mod of ocarina of time for the PC port that was made from a decompilation a while back. I’m excited to see the fun stuff that is made from other decompilation projects like this.
Could you share a link?
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's a real legal defense. Code is just as subject to copyright as game assets (why wouldn't it be? it's just another kind of game asset), and the whole extracting assets thing making decompilations free from copyright infringement that gets bandied about is complete armchair lawyering. It's only by Nintendo's good graces these are still allowed to be hosted on GitHub.
> Code is just as subject to copyright as game assets The decompiled code is not the code that Nintendo wrote. This isn't the equivalent of steeling original code but more like generating a brand new code that would compile to the same executable.
Why is it always the same on every thread of this type? Perhaps I can grab the code segments of a Windows ISO, apply a series of mechanical transformations, and proceed to call it Freedows and freely distribute it as my own? I am having trouble understanding the thought processes that lead to these conclusions. Too much ChatGPT?
By this logic copyright protection on software would be meaningless. The GPL would be meaningless. I could grab any program in the world, "translate it" to my favorite language-du-jour, and call it my own.. Goodbye viral license requirements...
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's a real legal defense. Code is just as subject to copyright as game assets (why wouldn't it be? it's just another kind of game asset), and the whole extracting assets thing making decompilations free from copyright infringement that gets bandied about is complete armchair lawyering. It's only by Nintendo's good graces these are still allowed to be hosted on GitHub.
There are fair use carveouts for reverse engineering code to, for example, make it usable on different platforms. I don’t believe this kind of decompile project has ever had its day in court and the laws are written in such a way that the outcome is at least somewhat likely to be skewed in favor of reverse engineering. Nintendo may be avoiding bringing suit because they don’t think they could win or that the judgemen…
It's even possible that Nintendo evaluates the harm of these projects to be rather lower compared to distributing the complete games themselves. Even though it's not based in any legal reality, the projects' firewall of "You must provide art assets from your own copy of the game" may suffice to keep the lawyers away.
I know, Nintendo will litigate anyone for any reason, but it is possible for a company to look away when these measures are taken.
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#39I’ve been having a blast playing an online multiplayer mod of ocarina of time for the PC port that was made from a decompilation a while back. I’m excited to see the fun stuff that is made from other decompilation projects like this.
Could you share a link?
Thanks, I should have included it in the original comment.
https://github.com/garrettjoecox/anchor
This is a fork of the Ship of Harkinian PC port for ocarina of time. If you just want to play the normal game on PC, you can go to the original repo here: https://github.com/HarbourMasters/Shipwright
Re: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Decompilation
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Code is just as subject to copyright as game assets The decompiled code is not the code that Nintendo wrote. This isn't the equivalent of steeling original code but more like generating a brand new code that would compile to the same executable.
Why is it always the same on every thread of this type? Perhaps I can grab the code segments of a Windows ISO, apply a series of mechanical transformations, and proceed to call it Freedows and freely distribute it as my own? I am having trouble understanding the thought processes that lead to these conclusions. Too much ChatGPT? By this logic copyright protection on software would be meaningless. The GPL would be mea…
These decompilation projects are not using the distributed game binary to derive the code in their ports directly. It's just used as a rubric. The source code generated from this process is not Nintendo's. That's the idea, at least. Different from taking Windows ISO and jumbling it up into a rude goldberg machine and claiming it as a new work.
Do consumers agree to a end user agreement that specifies they cannot decompile the game? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality