Comment on Mario Kart 64 got finally decompiled!
Matriks404@lemmy.world 2 days agoNo 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 2 days ago
I’m wrong about why,
But it’s been ruled as fair use
jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
That says reverse engineering is ok – not sharing RE’d code.
DoPeopleLookHere@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
AFAIK fair use means you can redistribute.
jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Fair use means legally using a copyrighted material without requiring permission of the copyright holder. It does not mean you can redistribute in general, though some forms of redistribution are fair use, such as using an excerpt from a book in your essay.
Reverse engineering code is also fair use, but that doesn’t mean it’s fair use to share the code you’ve reversed.