[ska]

> Distributing the reverse engineered source code is probably infringement however.

Probably not if it actually reverse engineered (with a firewall) but that's not what they are doing (i.e. decompilation isn't' reverse engineering)

[KaiserPro]

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/section/50B

Says that its totally not legal to distribute decompiled code, or indeed:

> uses the information to create a program which is substantially similar in its expression to the program decompiled or to do any act restricted by copyright.

If it was legal, there would be loads of decompiled binaries floating around for windows, Adobe, autodesk and any number of other expensive bits of software.

[EMIRELADERO]

Decompilation is an essential (although not mandatory for some cases) part of reverse-engineering.

As for decompilation projects that have only reconstructed source code and no game media assets, it's probably fair use.

[vore]

It is not fair use in itself: https://courses.cs.duke.edu/cps182s/fall02/cscopyright/Copyr...

  Decompiling object code produces an approximation of the original source code. Merely making this rough copy would usually violate the copyright holder's exclusive rights, even if the person who decompiled the code only used it as a preliminary step in making another work.

The only reason anyone believes this is fair use is because the copyright holders have chosen not to enforce it.

[EMIRELADERO]

It is more likely to be fair use in this specific instance, as the copyrighted work to which the analysis is applied to is the whole game, not the code itself.

A big part of fair use analysis is in the effect on the market for the original work. If people have to obtain a copy to even use the project in any interactable way, the effect is either none (if we suppose every user of the project gets their original copy illegaly) or positive/benefitial to the copyright holder (if it makes those users actually buy legit copies)

[charcircuit]

The game is a copyrighted work, but so is the source code. The compiled code is a derivative work, and so is the decompiled code. Nintendo is not selling the source code, so arguing about sales in the market does not makes sense.

[EMIRELADERO]

The fair use analysis is done on the work as a whole, the Zelda game that's registered on the Copyright Office. Not the code only.

[ThatPlayer]

Decompilation might be fine, but distributing the results isn't a part of reverse-engineering.

Fair use is limited scope. One of the first criteria is use. Fair use is generally reserved for education, criticism, comment, and news. At best you could say this is education, but even then one of the other criteria for fair use is the amount of the work published. If you're teaching or criticizing this code, the whole codebase is probably too much. Some snippets would be fine like you would see in code reviews or reviews of books and such.

[ska]

It’s an often used tool, sure , but for legal protection of reverse engg, your implementation side is firewalled from all of that.

It's not likely to be fair use to distribute, fwiw.