[Tiddalick]

Phredreeke, on 20 November 2017 - 04:39 PM, said:

Sharing MP3s of commercial CDs is still illegal despite not being perfect copies.

Hmm, but this is a different thing surely.
In that case even though the copy is not byte for byte the same, the 'essence' of the product has been transferred, in such that someone might not purchase the original item as they 'have it' already.

Don't think that applies in this case, as no commerical transaction is denied by reversing the code. In fact, this extra work put into the game might increase the sales, as some people refuse to use Dosbox or things similiar.

Perhaps this is splitting hairs.

[Hank]

Tiddalick, on 20 November 2017 - 04:14 PM, said:

I'm curious as to the 'correct' legal definition here.

If decompilation cannot yield the exact code that created it (as all things like comments, etc are lost and there are many ways to make the same function) then can you really be said to 'copy' the code through this action.

Just curious what programmers see as fair game and what is legally allowed.

Simple, and complex, based on my limited knowledge.

You buy a game, Blood, and this is the only legal copy you have. The license reads to that no reverse engineering is permitted. Since no legal source code exists, anything can be seen as reverse engineering. You can lawyer yourself out a bit by using Build, and guessing the rest.

But copyright laws have statues of limitation. You have between 3 to 5 years to act against an infringement, after that, any legal pursuit can become very expensive and complex, depending who the judge is.

Let's say, I placed a few dollar bills on a park bench, forgot about them, because a girl distracted my attention. I come back to the bench, and those bills are gone. After a year, I decide to ask the cops to look for the thief. This is how I see the Blood fiasco. Technically wrong, but meh, life ain't fair either.

[Phredreeke]

How to reverse engineer legally: https://en.wikipedia...ean_room_design

[Hendricks266]

BLOOD.EXE, no matter what form it takes, is copyrighted material.

Phredreeke, on 20 November 2017 - 06:21 PM, said:

How to reverse engineer legally: https://en.wikipedia...ean_room_design

Using the alpha source code is the opposite of clean room RE.

[Phredreeke]

Yeah, M210 is "tainted" in that regard, any code he writes for a Blood port can be considered infringing. There's a reason projects like ReactOS and WINE ask people who have at some point had access to Windows source code not to contribute.

[Tiddalick]

Phredreeke, on 20 November 2017 - 06:21 PM, said:

How to reverse engineer legally: https://en.wikipedia...ean_room_design

Thanks, that was interesting.