This sounds incredible, does it allow for redistribution of the fixed product? Or is it just for the purposes of notifying the creator of the problem and its solution in one go?
This is actually legal under US copyright law. There was a case involving the Game Genie which Nintendo sued to stop distribution of, in which it was ruled that modifying a program for personal use was fair use. If your EULA forbids you from decompiling, that's still binding because the EULA is the only thing that authorizes you to use the software to begin with.
The problems creep in where if you, say, decompile Windows to fix bugs in it, and then go to work on the Linux kernel (or other core system component). You are now tainted and probably shouldn't work on code similar to Windows because you can't prove that you didn't copy Windows code from your head into the new code.
because the EULA is the only thing that authorizes you to use the software to begin with
Do you have a source for this claim? I'd say that the primacy of having (legitimate) access to the software trumps any EULA provision concerning its use. The logical consequence of your assertion would be that software without an EULA can never legally be used.
Under US law, EULAs are binding per Vernor v. Autodesk. This does not apply to the EU which may forbid certain restrictions in EULAs.
Generally US law gives primacy to contractual agreements, and the EULA is a contract in which you give up some of your rights in exchange for not being sued for copyright infringement for copying the software from disk into RAM. This is copying under copyright law and the 1976 Copyright Act does not protect copies made for personal use.
Note that this does not apply to open source software; OSS licenses are bare licenses under common law and do not have the force of contract.
Proprietary software without an EULA cannot legally be used except by the copyright owner. That's why EULAs exist.
>the EULA is a contract in which you give up some of your rights in exchange for not being sued for copyright infringement for copying the software from disk into RAM. This is copying under copyright law and the 1976 Copyright Act.
That sounds ludicrous, I can't believe it. Is there a precedent of this argument being used in court that you know of?
IIRC it has come up in various Blizzard lawsuits around bots and cheat software.
From MDY Industries v. Blizzard:
> As with most software, the client software of WoW is copied during the program's operation from the computer's hard drive to the computer's random access memory (RAM). Citing the prior Ninth Circuit case of MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518-19 (9th Cir. 1993), the district court held that RAM copying constituted "copying" under 17 U.S.C. § 106.[4]
That one is more about another program accessing the ram and reading it (the act itself meaning that data in memory is "copied" again) but it's not a big jump to apply the same logic to a regular player's usage of the game.
You have done so if the painting is under the copyright of someone else, surely?
I’m afraid the argument that copyright is infringed when a copy is made within computer memory has long standing in the courts & is well established at this point in time (to my lay legal understanding).
Presumably you meant under US copyright law. This based on my observation that only people referencing that particular jurisdiction would write as though there were only one. It's particularly galling in comments on an article about EU laws.
It's difficult for me to imagine how this would work in my country's case. As a user of a product, you can't just say that the law doesn't apply to you even if the vendor wants you to say that.
> in exchange for not being held liable under other laws
This is pretty standard for trespassing. It’s illegal to be on someone’s private property if they don’t want you there. “Wanting you there” can very much be conditional on other agreements.
That's not suppressing the law, though. That's just using it the way it's written. And definitely doesn't qualify as an example of a threat of "being held liable under other laws" IMO.
Galoob v. Nintendo is so narrow in scope that it probably doesn't even cover games made today. Hell, people trying to resell Duke Nukem mods tried to rely on it and the courts said no.
Nowadays the business model for most games is not to sell the game, but to sell unlock keys or other subscription items that could be trivially unlocked with a cheat device. Furthermore, just using that cheat device almost certainly requires defeating a DMCA 1201 technical protection measure. So my gut feeling is that it's probably already been overturned simply by shifting business practices and changes to the law.
"Tainting" isn't necessarily how the law works, either. The standard for copyright infringement in the US is access plus substantial similarity. If you have access, then you need to make sure any code you write is different enough (as determined by a jury) from what you've seen. Merely having seen NT kernel code doesn't mean you legally can't write any kernel code at all - you don't have to prove a negative of "well I didn't remember X". The court (and jury) is going to look at what you wrote and what Microsoft alleges you copied, and then try to determine if it's actually a copy or not.
> the EULA is the only thing that authorizes you to use the software //
Piffle. The seller had an offer of sale, so I purchased the product outright - easy to tell as otherwise it would have been a lease or limited license agreement rather than a sale - I purchase it and have rights to use it (as I see fit) as long as they don't infringe the law.
Sure, they can choose to make a further contract, and I can sign that and return it if I wish to be bound by it.
Companies need to be brought to heel. I don't know why we play along with their nonsense.
> You are now tainted and probably shouldn't work on code similar to Windows
This doesn't make sense to me. If I "decompile" my Toyota, should I never work on cars because I now know what Toyota did to make mine? Of course not. That's absurd. I'm not sure how it being Software changes that.
It makes even less sense when you consider that people working with the actual source code of the software can (and do) just go and work for another company making similar software anyway. Same goes for your car analogy.
Is there any difference legally between the user applying the patch file themselves and them being provided a script to automatically patch it for them?
Well, so far it's how Fan Translations of videogames have largely avoided legal scrutiny: they distribute the translation as a ROM patch, but it's up to the end-user to track down the actual ROM / game dump.
That seems shady from a legal perspective - unlike a patch, a translation is obviously a derived work (being one of the explicitly listed examples in law of what is defined as a derived work), and you need permission from the author to distribute or even make a translation.
It's probably not legal but it's in the "no one really cares territory" since to actually enjoy the translation, you need to either buy a copy of the game or pirate it. In the former case, great, a sale made to a person that would've never otherwise bought the game and in the latter it makes no real difference since you were never marketing to that person anyways.
The English release of Steins;Gate is actually an edited version of the fan translation, so the property owners couldn't have been that upset with the fan translators.
No, this doesn't neccessarily imply that. The copyright owner possesses multiple rights and some of those rights only apply to distribution of altered works while still allowing alterations. E.g. you buy a house from an architect. Can the architect sue you if you add another door?
When you buy some media from the copyright owner, you can distribute it freely. This is called first sale doctrine in the USA, and is also present in certain forms in EU copyright law.
The first sale doctrine is not present for digital goods though, at least in the USA. In the EU, there has been a court case in 2012 UsedSoft GmbH v. Oracle International Corp which established something like that for digital goods too. But I'm not an expert on this.
Well, here in UK it's common when buying a house from a developer that the house comes with a covenant of some kind that stipulates that you can't make modifications to the front of the house without obtaining permission from the developer first. Yes, even though the house is entirely yours. The given reason being that they don't want you making the house "ugly" and ruining their reputation as a house builder.
That is such bullshit. It is not their house! Does it actually ruin their reputation? Or would it if people knew people could do anything to their own damn house? Still, I find not being able to do such things to my house without their permission silly. What is the most minor modification that is disallowed?
In my experience the point of such covenants is not about the reputation of the builder, it's about preserving the character of the neigbourhood... it can be inconvenient for you, yes, but your house is more valuable if you know your neighbours aren't going to ruin your view by turning the front of their house hideous...
Yeah, I was thinking of this and I thought this was mainly the reason but then they should start being honest about it, IMO. I wonder what modifications this disallows that do not actually do any "reputation ruining".
Seems like you can distribute it. But you can't create a competing product based on it. See point b here, that should let you send patches.
> 2. The provisions of paragraph 1 shall not permit the information obtained through its application:
> (a) to be used for goals other than to achieve the interoperability of the independently created computer program;
> (b) to be given to others, except when necessary for the interoperability of the independently created computer program;
> (c) to be used for the development, production or marketing of a computer program substantially similar in its expression, or for any other act which infringes copyright.
Edit: The point of the ruling was that this clause can be interpreted to work for fixing bugs and not just interoperate with other programs. So everything here goes for fixing bugs as well.
I can't tell, but it'd never be allowed. Grab an AAA game, fix a bug in it, and now you're free to redistribute the game without consequences. That'd be insane.
My idea wasn't to redistribute the whole thing, but to distribute a patch that other owners of the game can use by themselves? Now that's a win.
I also love the idea of adding newer OS compatibility to old software, seeing old video games running on Windows 10 would be thrilling. Perhaps do the same for drivers of old hardware? Also a win, IMO.
Another big question, in these patches, can I do only the fixes I can justify? Or can I go wild and remove the parts I don't like? I'd love to remove telemetry from my TV and all those weird apps it comes with that are in Chinese and are unusable outside China.
AFAIU the second part of the ruling states that you don't need to warn/get permission by the author.
Basically, you can fix it for your own consumption.
Surely you can't redistribute copyrighted material.
Yes, through you might(?) distribute a tool to help people "fix" their thing themself.
Like bundling a open source decompiler, recompiler, code to work around decompilation restrictions and a patch into a single binary you can then use to fix the actual binary.
From skimming it, a legal purchaser can decompile it only to the extent necessary to fix errors affecting operation, and copyright remains with the original rights holder. It's very limited.
You probably can buy, fix and re-sell software. I recall about some EU court ruling that made it clear that you can definitely sell the software you bought.
It's been ruled this way over and over and over again - you can definitely resell OEM software no matter what the licence says, it's your right as a consumer in the EU. My company bought a 50-user MSSQL 2019 licence for cheap(like €1000) because a company was going into bankruptcy and software was being sold off separately to all hardware.
