Quoting: slapin

Quoting: F.UltraClaim 28 is quite damaging to the reverse-engineering team:

28. Papenhoff has admitted that the source code developed via the re3 and reVC
projects is not original, but rather is (and was intended to be) a copy of the original. In fact,
Defendants have bragged that their derivative source code was created by working backwards
from Take-Two’s final “machine” code to re-create the human-readable code in which GTA was
programmed:

“GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming
language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in
machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to
C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but
over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this
process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the
decompiler and massage it back into readable C++.” Id.

If this is true and it appears to be so, then this is in fact copyright infringement and not something that any of us really can defend.

This shows that plaintif and you did not understand what reverse engineers say:
1. GTA code was written in C++
2. They managed to create their own code in C++ working in the same way as GTA code.
If you read they took original GTA code, you need to check your sight.

That is not what they did, what they did is:

1. GTA code was written in C++
2. They used a decompiler to turn the GTA binary into fully working C++ code
3. They did changes to the generated C++ code to implement the changes they wanted to make

T2 owns the copyright to the C++ code of the game, but they also of course owns the copyright to the compiled binary so when you use a decompiler to turn the copyrighted binary machine code into autogenerated C++ code then you have just made a 1:1 transformation of the copyrighted code, so this step does not remove any copyrights.

Had they instead used a disassembler to look at how the game engine worked and then wrote their own C++ code based on that observation then what you said would be true, but that is not what they did according to their own wording. Hence why they will have a very hard time making a defense here. But then I'm not a lawyer, not do I play one on TV.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.UltraClaim 28 is quite damaging to the reverse-engineering team:

28. Papenhoff has admitted that the source code developed via the re3 and reVC
projects is not original, but rather is (and was intended to be) a copy of the original. In fact,
Defendants have bragged that their derivative source code was created by working backwards
from Take-Two’s final “machine” code to re-create the human-readable code in which GTA was
programmed:

“GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming
language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in
machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to
C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but
over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this
process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the
decompiler and massage it back into readable C++.” Id.

If this is true and it appears to be so, then this is in fact copyright infringement and not something that any of us really can defend.

They recreated the C++ code from the machine code disassembled, then patched it to compile on different platforms... From my understanding that's still one valid way of reverse engineering. The other method of course is to study the data files and create code around interpreting it. Copyright infringement would only be if they literally took the original source code and copied it. That's the part that is copyrighted. Using a disassembler is not illegal in any sense of the word.

Using a disassembler just to look at the code is not illegal no, but if the binary machine code is copyrighted to T2 then the disassembled C++ code is also copyrighted to T2 since its derived from the copyrighted binary. There is precedence here in Sega vs Accolade where the appeals court decided that disassembled code is "fruit of the poisonous tree".

However they also decided that it fell under the fair use doctrine since "disassembly is required for humans to understand object code", but as I see it this does not apply here since the disassembled code was not used to understand how the game engine worked, it was used 1:1 to create the base source code of the project.

Arguing that this is legal would IMHO break the copyright protection that we have on GPL:ed code, in that companies can take our code as base and then do "changes" to it and now claim their own copyright on it and make it proprietary.

Ah, my interpretation was that they rewrote the C++ code based on the assembly code. Not that they basically just did a translation of it to C++ and copied it.

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.UltraClaim 28 is quite damaging to the reverse-engineering team:

28. Papenhoff has admitted that the source code developed via the re3 and reVC
projects is not original, but rather is (and was intended to be) a copy of the original. In fact,
Defendants have bragged that their derivative source code was created by working backwards
from Take-Two’s final “machine” code to re-create the human-readable code in which GTA was
programmed:

“GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming
language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in
machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to
C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but
over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this
process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the
decompiler and massage it back into readable C++.” Id.

If this is true and it appears to be so, then this is in fact copyright infringement and not something that any of us really can defend.

They recreated the C++ code from the machine code disassembled, then patched it to compile on different platforms... From my understanding that's still one valid way of reverse engineering. The other method of course is to study the data files and create code around interpreting it. Copyright infringement would only be if they literally took the original source code and copied it. That's the part that is copyrighted. Using a disassembler is not illegal in any sense of the word.

Using a disassembler just to look at the code is not illegal no, but if the binary machine code is copyrighted to T2 then the disassembled C++ code is also copyrighted to T2 since its derived from the copyrighted binary. There is precedence here in Sega vs Accolade where the appeals court decided that disassembled code is "fruit of the poisonous tree".

However they also decided that it fell under the fair use doctrine since "disassembly is required for humans to understand object code", but as I see it this does not apply here since the disassembled code was not used to understand how the game engine worked, it was used 1:1 to create the base source code of the project.

Arguing that this is legal would IMHO break the copyright protection that we have on GPL:ed code, in that companies can take our code as base and then do "changes" to it and now claim their own copyright on it and make it proprietary.

Ah, my interpretation was that they rewrote the C++ code based on the assembly code. Not that they basically just did a translation of it to C++ and copied it.

Papenhoff specifically mentioned that they used a decompiler (the suit is quoting his own words) and not a disassembler so they turned the binary into c++ code directly with a decompiler.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.UltraClaim 28 is quite damaging to the reverse-engineering team:

28. Papenhoff has admitted that the source code developed via the re3 and reVC
projects is not original, but rather is (and was intended to be) a copy of the original. In fact,
Defendants have bragged that their derivative source code was created by working backwards
from Take-Two’s final “machine” code to re-create the human-readable code in which GTA was
programmed:

“GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming
language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in
machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to
C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but
over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this
process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the
decompiler and massage it back into readable C++.” Id.

If this is true and it appears to be so, then this is in fact copyright infringement and not something that any of us really can defend.

They recreated the C++ code from the machine code disassembled, then patched it to compile on different platforms... From my understanding that's still one valid way of reverse engineering. The other method of course is to study the data files and create code around interpreting it. Copyright infringement would only be if they literally took the original source code and copied it. That's the part that is copyrighted. Using a disassembler is not illegal in any sense of the word.

Using a disassembler just to look at the code is not illegal no, but if the binary machine code is copyrighted to T2 then the disassembled C++ code is also copyrighted to T2 since its derived from the copyrighted binary. There is precedence here in Sega vs Accolade where the appeals court decided that disassembled code is "fruit of the poisonous tree".

However they also decided that it fell under the fair use doctrine since "disassembly is required for humans to understand object code", but as I see it this does not apply here since the disassembled code was not used to understand how the game engine worked, it was used 1:1 to create the base source code of the project.

Arguing that this is legal would IMHO break the copyright protection that we have on GPL:ed code, in that companies can take our code as base and then do "changes" to it and now claim their own copyright on it and make it proprietary.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: LachuSentence about lost of market, because game will be available on new platform is stupid. People must still buy an license to play on these new platforms, so Reverse Engineering team made a big gift for Take Two. It must not port game code to the new platform, so save many money. And it will receive profits, because users of these new platforms will buy an game licenses.

Defendants have sought to exploit a potential market that belongs exclusively to Take-Two

Yep, completely agree. Since you need the original game to use this re-engineered engine, T2 still own the market, still get all profits. Indeed, they do so without any support burden, or risk.

Nearly... oh so nearly picked up GTA-V in the last sale, but glad I didn't now. Last GTA I paid for was 3, funnily enough, back on the PS2, I think, or maybe PS3. I used to work in the same building as the R*N guys too. Of course, this isn't about them as devs, just their knee-jerk publishers.

Not really, with a free implementation of GTA3 you can buy say the cheap pc version to get the assets and then use this free port to have the game on the Switch, meanwhile T2 want you to pay a premium to be able to play GTA3 on the Switch so the free version have "taken that market away from T2".

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Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdI might be misunderstanding but it doesn't look like a clean room implementation like OpenRA, CorsixTH, OpenMW and GemRB. Instead they've reversed engineered the binaries to get the source code.

As long as it's not linux/cross-platform skeleton/compatibility layer, all of the code on the repo that's not behind a preprocessor condition(like FIX_BUGS) are completely reversed code from original binaries.

Clean room re-implementations are reverse engineered. Of course, a clean room re-implementation is done as follows:

Someone analyzes the original program to figure out how it works/interfaces with other software. They document this as they go along without any references to actual code.

Someone else takes the documentation and writes compatible code without ever directly seeing how the original code works.

The information presented here doesn't actually reveal whether this reverse engineering was done in a "clean room" manner or not.

Another way it so simply observe how the original application/game works and try to recreate it from there. In this particular case it does look like they just went with a decompiler (see my post two posts up).

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Quoting: monyarm

Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdI might be misunderstanding but it doesn't look like a clean room implementation like OpenRA, CorsixTH, OpenMW and GemRB. Instead they've reversed engineered the binaries to get the source code.

Ya, that's not how that works. Literally all open source implementations reverse engineer the original binaries. (even Zdoom, as the support for games like strife and the like had to be reverse engineered). That's how it's done. ScummVM for example recommends that new contributors should use a combination of debuggers and IDAPro (A tool for reverse engineering). And even then, reverse engineering doesn't give you the source code, rather it gives you c-like pseudocode for a given function, pseudocode which lacks names, types, structs, and has plenty of mistakes. It's a long and arduous process to reverse engineer anything.

Huge difference here is that ScummVM only reverses either public domain games or with

Quoting: monyarm

Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdI might be misunderstanding but it doesn't look like a clean room implementation like OpenRA, CorsixTH, OpenMW and GemRB. Instead they've reversed engineered the binaries to get the source code.

Ya, that's not how that works. Literally all open source implementations reverse engineer the original binaries. (even Zdoom, as the support for games like strife and the like had to be reverse engineered). That's how it's done. ScummVM for example recommends that new contributors should use a combination of debuggers and IDAPro (A tool for reverse engineering). And even then, reverse engineering doesn't give you the source code, rather it gives you c-like pseudocode for a given function, pseudocode which lacks names, types, structs, and has plenty of mistakes. It's a long and arduous process to reverse engineer anything.

Big difference there is that both Zdoom and ScummVM does this with the blessing of the copyright holders. Strife was reversed when the original author discovered that all the source code had vanished due to the servers it being held on had been sold.

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Claim 28 is quite damaging to the reverse-engineering team:

28. Papenhoff has admitted that the source code developed via the re3 and reVC
projects is not original, but rather is (and was intended to be) a copy of the original. In fact,
Defendants have bragged that their derivative source code was created by working backwards
from Take-Two’s final “machine” code to re-create the human-readable code in which GTA was
programmed:

“GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming
language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in
machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to
C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but
over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this
process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the
decompiler and massage it back into readable C++.” Id.

If this is true and it appears to be so, then this is in fact copyright infringement and not something that any of us really can defend.

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Quoting: Samsai

Defendants have sought to exploit a potential market that belongs exclusively to Take-Two.

Market which belongs exclusively to one party is called a monopoly, so I guess this means that Take-Two needs to pay antitrust fines or be broken up. :P

They have a monopoly on their copyrighted assets which is what they are talking about here. What they mean is that T2 have exclusive rights to port their own games to whatever system they want to and that this reverse-engineered port infringes on that right, aka T2 alone have the right to port GTA3 to say the Switch.

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Quoting: slapinWell, either Take-Two lawyers are extremely unprofessional or it is total fraud/freevolious.

"irreparable harm" means it can't be fixed by money, which is totally not
the case here even in worst case scenario. Unless they will bribe judge I don't see
how this claim won't get dismissed.

No this is common language to use in copyright cases in the US and have a special meaning:

Courts have found irreparable harm in cases where the plaintiff has proven that:

Plaintiff has suffered a loss that is difficult to compensate or measure.
Plaintiff has a limited time period to exploit its work or is experiencing other market disadvantages.
Plaintiff has lost the ability to control its copyrights.
Defendant's copyright infringement is harming plaintiff's reputation or brand.
Defendant's infringement interferes with plaintiff's exclusive license agreements.

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Quoting: dubigrasuNot impressed with the new additions, well, talking about ARK and Darksiders.
I can live somewhat with the ARK graphics while playing on a TV, but those 1 sec hangs from time to time, damn.
Darksiders looks OK, but both games are running at 30 FPS (or even less sometimes, to my eyes at least), which is ridiculous. I'm not a gazillion fps snob, but come on.

I don't think they're running any game through Proton/Wine/etc (though they do use DXVK), but sometimes I wish they did, because at least: a) some game would run better (ARK in this case) and b) less work and time required to get the games ready.
At this pace they'll be unable to deliver those 100 games in 2021 as they're promised. Not sure what's the hold up (porting time or publishing rights?) but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Darksiders II was locked to 30fps on PS4 and going by the steam discussions it seems to have huge frame rate problems on Windows.

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