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The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask just got an unofficial PC port
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this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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Nintendo shutting it down and requiring all copies be destroyed in 3... 2...
I think this is using recomp, anybody with a rom could theoretically do this on their own pc, so there's morning to destroy. The recomp isn't specific to Nintendo and isn't really violating copyright, as far as I understand.
Yeah that's their intention.
Indeed, these decom projects do not include any of Nintendo's assets.
The code compiles 1:1 back into a unable ROM but isn't made just using a source code leak. It is reverse-engineered just like the SM64 decomp
Projects not containing anything owned by Nintendo has never stopped Nintendo from destroying those projects (and peoples lives) in the past.
Nintendo has not taken action on the massively popular SM64 Decompilation and PC ports (and ironically switch ports) in the past what...3 years?
Nintendo hadn't taken action against ROM sites for even more years (I was able to download NES, Game Boy, and SNES ROMs in the 1990s) and then decided to make an example of only one in 2019. Just because something is not on the radar of lawyers in Japan right now, doesn't mean a law suit over millions could not come any day.
Decompilation means it's still derived from copyrighted source code. It's not a clean-room implementation where one person analyzes the engine, writes documentation about details of that engine, and a completely different person writes a new engine. It's not even a grey area. The correct procedure is clear ever since back in the day "IBM compatible" were created.
If it were up to me, copyrights would work like patents: After 25 years they're void and people would be completely in the clear to decompile, modify, and redistribute old games. Sadly that's not the reality.
It looks like the project is really careful not to include copyrighted materials in their distribution.
Clever. I hope this protects the makers.
Like the Mario 64 Unreal Engine remake?
Edit: Unreal Engine, not Unity. My mistake. My point is that unless the project uses absolutely zero intellectual property, such as characters, stories, or franchise names, Nintendo will almost undoubtedly take ruthless interest.
I did a quick Google search, but I’m not familiar with this project and it’s not obvious to me what this project is.
They probably mean the Super Mario 64 Decompilation Project.
The goal was to turn the finished ROM back into unable code, that would do 1:1 the same thing. They finished a couple of years back.
https://github.com/n64decomp/sm64
Yes, they did a really good job. It handles the logic, but keep in mind the ROM itself is going to have operations that talk to the hardware that does things that just don’t exist in the code. The function will actually be in the hardware. Those pieces still have to be supplied of course.
My mistake, I misremembered. It was in Unreal Engine, and IIRC it was right before they released the shitty 3D All Stars port.
Source code automatically generated from copyrighted binary code is a derivative of copyrighted code, though. It's like taking a copyrighted book and running it through Google Translate and then clean up the sentences manually. You could be lucky that a publisher might not care about a translation into Icelandic but if you were to auto-translate a French version of a book into English and try to distribute it in the US, you'd probably get in trouble even if you leave out all graphic artwork.
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