The title says almost everything. Lately, I've been analyzing some games, trying to find out their internal algorithms. This is, unless I'm completely mistaken about the terminology, reverse engineering of software. Someone told me months ago that there's no problem with that as long as you own a legal copy of the program (which I do, I have the cartridge for all the games I'm analyzing) and you use that information for personal use only, that is, not release it to the public or sell it.
The person who told me that, however, is not a reliable source and I'm no good at laws either, so I decided to create this topic to ask if it's really OK to share information obtained through reverse engineering of copyrighted software or to distribute a file of key presses made with this information. And if not, what legal consequences that would implicate.
It depends on the country. In some countries only distribution of reverse-engineered material is illegal, not the reverse-engineering itself (which makes sense because it would be quite difficult to enforce such a law; how do you control what people do in the privacy of their homes?) Other governments do not think so logically about this and have it illegal outright.
Software usage licenses often forbid reverse engineering, but such licenses never override the law. (For example in Finland being able to make a backup of a software you are legally authorized to use is an inalienable right, and no license agreement can override that fact, no matter how much it says so, and no matter how much you have "accepted" the license.. The law actually specifically and unambiguously states that any part of a usage license saying so is null and ineffective.)
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A lot of software companies explicitly put a clause in their terms of use that disallows the reverse engineering of their software, but this would not stand up to legal scrutiny (it's the same with a lot of other things they put in there).
Some required reading: http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/features/trade101/trade101.html
As a thought exercise, suppose you invent a lightsaber (à la Star Wars) and begin selling them in numerous quantities. A competitor buys one of your products, gains an understanding of its overall function, tears into it in order to reverse-engineer the circuitry involved, and begins selling competing lightsabers. You have no patent. Unfortunately, there is no trade secret violation in this scenario because the moment the product was sold, its status as a trade secret ended. No less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court stated that it is perfectly lawful to “steal” a company’s trade secrets by reverse engineering.
This is a US-centric explanation but this is basically the same everywhere.
In fact, until the emergence of EFI practically all consumer computer hardware (save for Apple and various other smaller vendors) had BIOS code at their core that was basically reverse engineered from IBM's original work.
I can only comment as far as the United States goes, but reverse engineering is not illegal as long as it isn't used for the purposes of enabling copyright infringement. (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).
As far as licenses go, remember, even if you break a software 'license' it is breaking a contract, and not actually 'illegal.' It is a civil case, and thus you'd need a company to actually take you to court, and present a preponderance of evidence that shows you violated terms of your agreement, and that agreement was actually binding. (AFAIK, end-user license agreements haven't been tested in US Courts).
So, yeah, as far as breaking into a game code, and showing what makes it tick, don't worry. Presenting the entire ROM for download? That is an issue.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
I don't find the legal questions particularly interesting, since in practice nobody's going to sue you unless you're doing something they don't like, and if that's the case they'll find a pretext to sue pretty much regardless of what you're actually doing. It might not hold up in court, but it doesn't have to to get you to stop.
The moral questions are more interesting IMO. And the answer to those depends entirely on what you're going to do once you've finished reverse-engineering the algorithms involved.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
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DarkKobold wrote:
(AFAIK, end-user license agreements haven't been tested in US Courts).
There have been a few cases where the user was clearly in violation of the license. Like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD_v._Zeidenberg
However, clickwrap licenses don't circumvent the law. You couldn't make a contract saying "you can't sue me if you accept this license", for example. The same goes for reverse engineering.
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Even if it was illegal, game companies put anti-reversing clauses in their EULAs in order to prevent online cheating and other such resource- and reputation-harming activity. If they don't lose anything from the reversers, they're unlikely to pursue legal action.
Here's an interesting related story. It's technically illegal to reverse-engineer Worms Armageddon. However, in 2001, a skilled reverser named Deadcode initially made a cheat program from heavy reversing, then made a program that counters that cheat program and adds some extra features to the game. Team17 (Worms Armageddon's developer company) had an open mind and actually hired him to work with the game's source code to improve their game instead of pursuing legal action.
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Another good example is OpenTTD. This is a reverse engineered (and subsequently improved) version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe.
When I started playing it, I originally thought MicroProse Ltd. had generously made the game open source, but they haven't.
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The likeliness that you will be sued is proportional to how much less money they make because of what you did or to how much money you are making using their work illegally.
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It says "You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create derivative work from, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the CD-ROM to human readable form." in the installer's EULA.
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Lex wrote:
It says "You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create derivative work from, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the CD-ROM to human readable form." in the installer's EULA.
That's what we've been trying to explain all along: they can put that in the EULA all they want, but it's not going to make reverse engineering illegal. All they can do is terminate their contract with you, but they can't sue you.*
They might as well put in their EULA that writing negative blog posts about their company is illegal. Doesn't make it so.
*: technically you can always get sued for any reason, but it would be a frivolous lawsuit.
It says "You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create derivative work from, adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise reduce the CD-ROM to human readable form." in the installer's EULA.
You said that reverse engineering is illegal, not that it's against the wishes of the owner. Those are two completely different things. EULAs don't dictate law. That's why I asked.
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Derakon wrote:
Dada wrote:
They might as well put in their EULA that writing negative blog posts about their company is illegal. Doesn't make it so.
In fact, I'm pretty sure companies have tried this, perhaps not in EULAs, but in contracts e.g. for review copies.
I'm sure companies try to make deals like that a lot, and successfully too, but I can't recall ever hearing about any lawsuits regarding this. Maybe in clear cases of libel, but not that I can remember anyway.
They might as well put in their EULA that writing negative blog posts about their company is illegal. Doesn't make it so.
In fact, I'm pretty sure companies have tried this, perhaps not in EULAs, but in contracts e.g. for review copies.
I'm sure companies try to make deals like that a lot, and successfully too, but I can't recall ever hearing about any lawsuits regarding this. Maybe in clear cases of libel, but not that I can remember anyway.
You're not going to see something like that go to court except maybe with an arrogant small business owner who doesn't understand contracts. Anyone who has a lawyer on hire would look at the case, say "Yeah, that bit won't stand", and settle out of court. The point isn't to make a contract that's fully legal; it's to make people think twice before taking actions that you don't want. You think most EULA readers have a strong grasp of the law? Hell, I sure don't.
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
EULAs are of no legal significance whatsoever. They are not contracts, despite containing the word "agreement" in the title. There is no copy of the EULA in the vendor's office with your signature on it. You are not entering into a contract by clicking on something on your computer screen. You are not engaging in a conduct that indicates consent on your part to form a contract, you are in fact not engaging in a "conduct" at all, you are just sitting at home using your own computer.
If you have bought the software in a store and paid for it, there is another thing that makes them invalid as contracts. They provide you with nothing of value that you do not already have. When the cashier took the money from you and handed you the box, that concluded the deal regarding your software. You have paid the amount on the price tag, and you are the legal owner of the box and everything in it. It is too late for the seller to change their mind and add conditions to the sale which has already happened. So, for a paid product, even if you were to print out the "agreement" (or extortion letter, to be precise), sign it and mail it to the seller, it would still be invalid in court.
Actually, when you buy a software, you don't own the software. You own a license (ie. permit) to use the software. It's certainly not the same thing. This even from the point of view of the law (in most countries).
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HHS wrote:
EULAs are of no legal significance whatsoever. They are not contracts, despite containing the word "agreement" in the title. There is no copy of the EULA in the vendor's office with your signature on it. You are not entering into a contract by clicking on something on your computer screen. You are not engaging in a conduct that indicates consent on your part to form a contract, you are in fact not engaging in a "conduct" at all, you are just sitting at home using your own computer.
It may be different where you live, but in the US clickwrap licenses have repeatedly been found to be enforceable. With some caveats, of course. Things that are clearly unconscionable can't be enforced.
Although you aren't the copyright holder of the software, you do own the copy you have bought, the legal right to use it is yours, and the additional contract is simply invalid even if signed, since being a contract requires that each party receives something they would otherwise not be entitled to have. The disc is yours, the box is yours, the booklets are yours, only the right to make copies of the software is not yours. Not being denied the use of something you are rightfully entitled to use is not something that can be bargained for in a contract. Loading the software onto your computers is not copyright infringement, it is a part of the intended and advertised use, which you have paid for.
It's possible to have a bad day in court and lose even if you are right, of course. In the case of ProCD v. Zeidenberg in Wisconsin, USA, the box had writing on it stating that the usage was subject to terms stated in the enclosed license, supposedly making Zeidenberg subject to these terms by purchasing the software. I find this reasoning doubtful. At the time of the purchase, ProCD did not own the box containing the software, and were in no position to transfer the right to use the contents of the box to Zeidenberg. The box was sold to Zeidenberg without the need for ProCD's consent, so the purchase most definitely did not involve accepting any terms printed on the outside or the inside of the box.
The court argued that accepting the good implied accepting the terms of the offer from ProCD according to UCC § 2-606. This is simply false. The offer from ProCD is not the offer that Zeidenberg accepted. The offer he accepted was the one from Best Buy, which stated that Zeidenberg, after handing over a specific amount of money, would walk out of the store with a copy of SelectPhone in his possession.
It should be noted that clicking on "I accept" is not a conduct indicating your acceptance. The only way for EULA terms to be effective is if you are using software that you, to your knowledge, are not otherwise legally entitled to use. Clicking on a button is not a magical act that causes you to enter into an agreement. A software product is not a legal entity, it can't be construed as acting as an agent on behalf of the vendor with the authority to receive acceptance. One does not commit an act of communication to the offeror by clicking on "I accept".
In other countries, such as Germany, EULAs have been categorically found to be invalid unless signed at the time of purchase.
Well, deep down, reverse-engineering is really "wrong" because others may figure out how parts of the game work and use it to their own profit. This is probably the simplest definition of reverse-engineering. Whether this is wrong or ok is up to a person's morality. Although robbing hard work from the original creators in order to copy it and profit yourself is a low blow, and I doubt anyone who is minimally civil would approve of that.
So, should the TAS community reverse-engineer games? Yes. Let's face it, we're talking about reverse-engineering games from the SNES and Genesis era. Even if someone reverse-engineers it to make profit out of it, it's... not really a big deal.
Besides, I don't think some companies care that much. For instance, Sonic Genesis for the GBA was a... *ahem*, let me say it calmly. That game was horrible. The fans were even able to make an awesome port for the GBA, just to demonstrate that it can be done. This just shows how much Sonic Team cares about the classic's source-code. Pfft.
But the thing is... we're not reverse-engineering to our own profit. We're doing it to provide entertainment, free of charge, in a way that won't harm the profit of the original creators. Heck, I'd even a TAS of Sonic 3 & Knuckles could be a way to get someone interested in such a game (kinda). If one of the games I made ever got reverse-engineered, I'd be pissed, but if it were for the good of entertainment, without damaging profit or disrespecting my hard work, I'd love it and approve of it. The law, however, is more focused on punishing people without caring too much...
But in the end, I think the TAS community won't get into trouble for reverse-engineering games to find out shortcuts and such.
I'm Espyo from the SRB2 Forums.
Current project: A Pikmin fan engine, Pikifen
