HN Explorer

38 comments

[ 6.7 ms ] story [ 89.1 ms ] thread
egeozcan
It's a shame. I doubt that they had any copyrighted work, it was just some reverse engineering.
zer0n
They had some binary fonts and files with "game story"
ChrisLomont
Reverse engineered code is still copyrighted by the owners. The proper legal way to get source is to take a clean room approach where one team reversed the code, writes a specification, and a second team rewrites the program from the spec without ever seeing the original code.
0_gravitas
I thought in order to copyright code, you need to disclose the source code as part of the registration process, no?
gravypod
I am not a lawyer but copyrights are automatic rights. Patents follow a process similar to what you're talking about.
PeterisP
Copyright is automatic and grants full protection from the moment of creation.

Registering copyright isn't necessary, it is helpful though in resolving certain disputes. Registration also does not require you to disclose the work to everyone, it requires you to deposit the work with the copyright office, which will pull it out if some court case requires it.

vaduz
To add to this, in the US, registering is also necessary to sue for infringement (since the 2019 Fourth Estate ruling in SCOTUS) and it determines if the statutory damages apply or not - registration must come before infringement. It's not at all required to file a takedown notice, though.
devrand
My understanding is that registration is not required before infringement occurs, but it is required before a copyright lawsuit can proceed. That is, any lawsuits with regard to a unregistered copyright will be paused until the copyright is registered.
vaduz
The lawsuits regarding unregistered copyright are and were expressly forbidden under Copyright Act of 1976 - 17 U.S.C. 411 [0] (with the specific exception for the case where all procedures were met, but registrations has been refused), but some districts used to consider the mere filing of the papers as sufficient to sue under, and some did not. SCOTUS resolved it in the Fourth Estate case by reaffirming that you are required to hold a registration of the work to sue for copyright infrigement of that work. [1]

THe "infringement before registration" does not affect the ability to sue for it - it only affects the ability to get statutory damages [2], which is where the huge figures are coming in, as you do not have to prove actual damage - but it does mean that any lawsuits filed before registration is obtained are to be dismissed due to lack of standing and of course statute of limitations also applies.

There are some othe exceptions but they consider unpublished works and/or works within 3 months from publication, so they don't often come into play.

[0] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title17/html...

[1] https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/586/17-571/

[2] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2010-title17/html...

ptcampbell
Wow. Do you have an example of this happening?
royjacobs
The BIOS used in the original Compaq machines is the classic example of this.
comprev
Exactly the example I was thinking of. It was a turning point for Microsoft in the David vs Goliath (IBM) story. Now their software could run on IBM-compatible hardware opening the floodgates for PC manufacturers
carlhjerpe
I think this is kinda what the Wine project is doing.
TLLtchvL8KZ
I cant remember the name, but there was a GNU replacement for flash, I believe one of the rules to contributing was that you had not ever even used Adobe Flash before.

Back around 2007 I used it for a while, it mostly worked okay but always came across things it wouldn't work with and went crawling back.

ce4
Wasn't it called Gnash if i'm not mistaken?
djmips
When Accolade Games reverse engineered the Sega Genesis (Megadrive) in the early nineties they employed the clean room technique with two groups of engineers. They went on to produce games for the Genesis without paying a royalty to Sega.
udbhavs
Unrelated but this reminds me of temporal pincers from Tenet
mcjkrw
How can that be proven? E.g. how can you prove legally that the team writing the code didn't see reverse engineered code?
bonoboTP
How can anything be proven in a court of law? You use evidence of the same sorts as in any other litigation process. Testimonies, documents, emails, anything of record. Looking at the result and seeing if it is plausible that what they say is true or not. There is no 100% proof, but there never is in legal proceedings.
0_gravitas
`<inflammatory-statement>The very concept of "Intellectual Property" is madness</inflammatory-statement>`

Anyone have a local copy of the repo they'd be willing to share?

bilegeek
Go to the snapshot of the repo on Archive.org, download the ZIP.
lyptt
I'm glad I set up a git mirror on my own home server. I've been looking forward to giving this a shot all week!
CodeArtisan
There have been rumors lately that Take-Two is going to announce a remake or remaster of both GTA3 and Vice City.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
iknowstuff
Do you mean published rumors or insider chatter?
tibbydudeza
They made reddit and hacker news in the last 2 weeks. An inevitable outcome considering how much money Take 2 makes from the GTA franchise.
withmorten
The readme actually links to the Steam store, so if anything, they'd make more money!