Decompilation is definitely the path forward. Not only does it preserve games and allow you to play enhanced native versions, they're totally legal and won't get you into hot water. I played Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time at 60fps and it was glorious.

Wait, what? Distributing decompiled code from a proprietary source is completely legal? Is that actually correct?

I was under the impression that the source code is copyrighted, as is the compiled build of the game, and that decompiling the game is a violation of the Terms of Service, which would make distributing it still illegal. I'd love to be wrong about this though.

The ORIGINAL source code is copyrighted, but decompiling does not give you the original source code. Decomp tools give you generic variable names like unsigned_int_4 and then it’s up to you to decipher what the purpose of the variable even is and give it a relevant name. So it’s virtually impossible you’ll get a character-for-character match to the original.

Also, decomps have different levels of accuracy. You may get something that is a perfect behavioral match, even though there’s differences in the instructions being run. You may get an instruction-perfect match but not a byte-perfect match between the binaries.

IANAL but this is what I’ve learned from following decomp projects on YouTube

It would be cool if there was a law mandating that companies release the source code of a product after they stop distributing it, or maybe something like 15 years after its initial release.

Or just make all software open source ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yeah. And all the big projects so far have required a "legally dumped" ROM as an input.

Yes, reverse engineering is totally legal. The big asterisk here is that you can't distribute any assets the company owns, so you need the original game files regardless to play the decompiled version.

"Legal" is a very strong word here.

A better statement would be that there hasn't really been a major court case regarding decompiling source for hobby use and most cases where it is used for profit or piracy are no nos for existing reasons. But for education purposes or to develop and interface, it is a grey area. In large part because said education makes you toxic as hell in industry and said interfaces are usually for things that violate the license agreement and TOS because the software didn't provide an interface for a reason.

And then you run into cases where the act of bypassing protections to get the binaries in the first place put you in further hot water. Sort of like how the (way over simplified) argument that you are legally allowed to have a backup of your video games but the act of making said backup gets REALLY sketchy in a lot of cases.

I would probably phrase it more as "decompiling source code is not illegal. How you use it might be"

Its also always worth remembering that law comes from precedent. And it is rarely in anyone's interest for stuff like this to go to trial. So there will be a few landmark cases that cover VERY specific use cases and a LOT of cases of big lawyers saying "Do you really wanna fuck with us?" and getting a C&D and a settlement.

Great thinking. It wont ever happen though because that would be sOcIaLiSm.

I believe that's to get the assets (i.e. the textures, character models, etc) which are still covered by copyright and so can't be included in the decomp projects