Yeah, that’s why all the IBM clones had to write their BIOS firmware in clean room implementations of new software that implemented the same functionality as IBM’s own documentation described.
Functionality can’t be copyrighted, but code can be. So the easiest way to prove that you made something without the copyrighted code is to mimic the functionality through your own implementation, not by transforming the existing copyrighted code, through decompilation or anything like that.
DoPeopleLookHere@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Decompiling doesn’t give you the code like you’d expect.
It gives you the instructions the code generates.
There’s a Lego island decomp documentary on YouTube that is recomend for more details.
But the actual source code used doesn’t get piped out. Instead you get the machine instructions and you make code that generates the same instructions.
Meaning your still writing the game yourself, meaning you own the copyright
Matriks404@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
No one says that the actual source code (C or whatever) is “piped out”. The machine instructions (in form of a binary) you get is the code that is executed by the machine/emulator and it’s copyrighted like any other data on the disc/cartridge. You are not writing the game yourself if you are decompiling it. And it’s logically a derivative work.
I don’t understand what kind of mental gymnastics you need to do to think that you are doing something original here.
DoPeopleLookHere@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
I’m wrong about why,
But it’s been ruled as fair use
jsomae@lemmy.ml 9 hours ago
That says reverse engineering is ok – not sharing RE’d code.