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points by xyzsparetimexyz 1 day ago | 0 comments

It's not even that. The main thing is _publishing_ the decompilation. Doing the decompilation is fine. If I own a game I'm pretty sure I am (or should) be able to legally decompile it or recompile it and turn it into something that runs in a browser or on my phone or whatever. But the source code (not relevant here unless there's a leak) and binary are copyrighted and decompilation doesn't count as a transformative work.

[–] AlotOfReading 1 day ago

It would be wild to make the argument that decompilation isn't transformative. A classic test is whether the derivative work serves a different purpose than the original. Google thumbnails for example. That seems pretty obviously true for decompilation, since it's the first step in quite a lot of modding, porting, and preservation uses that the original binary doesn't serve.

[–] avaer 1 day ago

> If I own a game I'm pretty sure I am (or should) be able to legally decompile it or recompile it

That's a nice theory (and I morally agree with it); not sure the courts would agree; it hasn't been tested. I expect the money would win in this case if we extrapolate from history.