I wonder if this were actually play out in a fair court wouldn't it be theft? At least in the US if I were to legally purchase the old game and create a patch for it to remove the DRM that's something I'm allowed to do. At which point I'd have a totally legal copyrighted work I could distribute. The crime isn't until someone uses it to patch an illegally owned copy of the game. So now Rockstar is stealing someone else's copyrighted work and distributing it?
I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if this applies to all civil torts, but there's something called a "clean hands doctrine" where you cannot sue for damages related to something you illegitimately gained in the first place. Brave Search gave me this:
The doctrine protects the integrity of a court and is used in U.S. patent law to deny equitable or legal relief to a patentee that has engaged in improper conduct, such as using the patent to extend monopoly power beyond the claims of the patent.
That said, I'm also fairly certain that removing DRM, legally or not, on a game you own does not make the resulting patched copy your own copyrighted work.
My argument is the patch itself is copyrighted work. It's essentially a mod and in many cases its legal to make and distribute patches. If I make a Skyrim mod with unique IP inside it, I can freely distribute it as I see fit as long as I don't include any Bethesda property as part of the distribution. Bethesda cannot confiscate and distribute it as a DLC though.
Yeah I'm grasping at straws for curiosity sake, I know there's no chance in Yell a judge would even attempt to look at it fairly.
Interesting video, but I don’t think it’s directly relavent to the situation. A more comparable example would be if Nintendo stole the code from the multiplayer BotW mod and incorporated it in an update/sequel. Similar to when they sold us pirated ROMs of their old games instead of just dumping them themselves lmao:
I wonder if this were actually play out in a fair court wouldn't it be theft? At least in the US if I were to legally purchase the old game and create a patch for it to remove the DRM that's something I'm allowed to do. At which point I'd have a totally legal copyrighted work I could distribute. The crime isn't until someone uses it to patch an illegally owned copy of the game. So now Rockstar is stealing someone else's copyrighted work and distributing it?
I'm not a lawyer and have no idea if this applies to all civil torts, but there's something called a "clean hands doctrine" where you cannot sue for damages related to something you illegitimately gained in the first place. Brave Search gave me this:
That said, I'm also fairly certain that removing DRM, legally or not, on a game you own does not make the resulting patched copy your own copyrighted work.
My argument is the patch itself is copyrighted work. It's essentially a mod and in many cases its legal to make and distribute patches. If I make a Skyrim mod with unique IP inside it, I can freely distribute it as I see fit as long as I don't include any Bethesda property as part of the distribution. Bethesda cannot confiscate and distribute it as a DLC though.
Yeah I'm grasping at straws for curiosity sake, I know there's no chance in Yell a judge would even attempt to look at it fairly.
Mods arent legal in the first place.
https://youtu.be/mo_AmQgSSqY?si=AdJR-q8zuHTxc-Va
Moon channel has a great breakdown on the legal caselaw of mods in and around the gaming space.
Interesting video, but I don’t think it’s directly relavent to the situation. A more comparable example would be if Nintendo stole the code from the multiplayer BotW mod and incorporated it in an update/sequel. Similar to when they sold us pirated ROMs of their old games instead of just dumping them themselves lmao:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zR1uEwjx7VI&feature=emb_title