No one says that the actual source code (C or whatever) is “piped out”. The machine instructions (in form of a binary) you have before decompiling is the code that is executed by the machine/emulator is 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. The fact that the resulting “instructions” is not the source code that developers wrote is as expected. It won’t create it from thin air.
I don’t understand what kind of mental gymnastics you need to do to think that you are doing something original here.
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.
No one says that the actual source code (C or whatever) is “piped out”. The machine instructions (in form of a binary) you have before decompiling is the code that is executed by the machine/emulator is 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. The fact that the resulting “instructions” is not the source code that developers wrote is as expected. It won’t create it from thin air.
I don’t understand what kind of mental gymnastics you need to do to think that you are doing something original here.
I’m wrong about why,
But it’s been ruled as fair use
That says reverse engineering is ok – not sharing RE’d code.
AFAIK fair use means you can redistribute.
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.