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Because software copyright was and is a bad idea, and courts (especially the 9th Circuit) have generally carved out exceptions for compatibility-related copying
by kmeisthax 5y ago
Because software copyright was and is a bad idea, and courts (especially the 9th Circuit) have generally carved out exceptions for compatibility-related copying in the software domain that absolutely would not apply to other copyrightable work that ships with the software. You absolutely can legally reimplement a computer program such as a game engine, but doing so to the story, assets, level design, or what have you would just be ordinary copyright infringement. As a result most game reimplementations either do not ship with any art, or ship with an entirely separate custom-made campaign to demonstrate the capabilities of the reimplemented game engine.
- HolidayguyNOR 5y agoDucking it wasn't very helpful, what's the 9th circuit? Is it a court of appeals of some kind?
- kmeisthax 5y agoThe Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is an appeals court that covers basically the entire west coast of the United States within it's jurisdiction. As a result of that, it covers a lot of copyright cases and has a lot of it's own copyright jurisprudence that doesn't automatically apply in other circuits. (Notably, Oracle v. Google would have taken half the time it should have been had it not included patent claims, which moved what should have been a 9th Circuit case into Federal Circuit jurisdiction.)
- HolidayguyNOR 5y agoThanks for clarifying!