Decomps are legal because they’re clean room reimplementations of the original code rather than exact copies.
It’s the same approach IBM PC compatibles used back in the day to create their own BIOSes.
Comment on Fan-made Mario Kart 64 PC port released, with track editor and ultrawide support
LorIps@lemmy.world 23 hours agoProbably not, the don’t provide copyrighted files and Nintendo reeeeeaaaally doesn’t want to create precedent that decomp is fair use (which based on Apple v Franklin it probably is) which could make emulators 100% legal.
blackjam_alex@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
There’s no precedent. Nintendo sues, the developer doesn’t have money for lawyers to defend themselves so they remove it.
That’s how it’s been going for a long time.
altima_neo@lemmy.zip 20 hours ago
Problem here is Nintendo doesnt have much to sue them on. They were even pretty careful about how they named the project. Naming it Spaghetti Kart and making no references to Nintendo or even Mario Kart.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
They can sue if they can prove that the code wasn’t reversed engineered in a clean room. Meaning nobody looked at the original code. And one person or group examines the system and writes the specifications and another group implements the specification without the teams interacting with each other. And usually a lawyer has to be involved and review the specification. The separation of teams is called the “Chinese Wall”
And depending on interpretation of the law using a decompiler can be seen as breaching the “Chinese Wall” since the implementation is then not based solely on the specification but based on the original code.
Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
It doesn’t matter that they have no basis for a lawsuit. Nintendo starts a lawsuit, no matter how ridiculous, and the developer has to pay a lawyer to defend or they lose to default judgement.
The US isn’t like EU. Everyone pays their own costs whether you win or lose. If you win, you can then start a new lawsuit to recover legal costs but that costs more money and you aren’t guaranteed to recover the money.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Emulators ARE 100% legal.
It’s the roms that are illegal.
trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 hours ago
If you are in the US, ROMs aren’t illegal either. You’re just required to rip them from a cartridge/disc you acquired legally (including second-hand purchases) and you can’t distribute it to others. It’s the latter part that makes it illegal (but not at all immoral). If you wanna do that last part, god bless. Fuck these companies.
tonytins@pawb.social 23 hours ago
Which is pretty fucked up logic.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 hours ago
Not really; The emulator doesn’t use any copyrighted code, but the ROM is copyrighted. That’s just basic IP law.
What is fucked up logic is Nintendo encrypting their ROMs, then providing decryption keys on the console. So the emulator itself is legal, but actually booting a ROM requires decrypting it, which requires keys from a legitimate console. Nintendo has argued that those keys are illegal to use in an emulator, even if the user rips them directly from the console that they own. So you have the keys. You own the console they’re stored on. But it’s illegal to use those keys anywhere except on the console they came on, because Nintendo said so.
yucandu@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Because US DMCA law has provisions in it about copyright circumvention. Same thing led to the “you can’t repair your own John Deere tractor” debacle.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
It’s kind of brilliant, in a Lex Luthor kind of way…
catloaf@lemm.ee 23 hours ago
Why do you say that?
tonytins@pawb.social 23 hours ago
It’s like being handed a MP3 player but being told you’ll go to jail for playing music you ripped yourself.