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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'>I am a lawyer, but I may or may not be
licensed to practice in any jurisdiction relevant to the participants in this
discussion, and nothing in this message should be construed as legal advice.
You should always consult an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction and
familiar with the relevant law before making material legal decisions.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Is it reasonable to take from the OP’s comment that what he means
is to put a production staff in a room with a verbal description of the game
and tell them, “Do that?” Or would the “clean room”
contain a copy of the actual game but not allow any staff members to look at
the underlying materials through decompilers, text editors, or whatever? I’m
not sure I understand how you can do what he suggests. If the OP or anyone more
familiar with this sort of thing as it relates to software could expand, I
would be grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>In any event, the concept of “reverse engineering”
copyrighted material is nonsensical under <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">US</st1:place></st1:country-region> law (and the law of many other
countries.) If you had enough access to it to reverse engineer it, you didn’t
make a new work, you copied an old one. If your new work otherwise is
infringing, the fact that you “reverse engineered” it rather than
making a literal copy is irrelevant. The question is, of course, whether your
new work is otherwise infringing. If it’s not it doesn’t matter: if
it is, it still doesn’t matter. The Borland case cited by another poster
is a good counterexample – you could “reverse engineer” a
spreadsheet in terms of function, because the user-facing elements of a
spreadsheet’s *<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>functionality</span></b>*
are not copyrightable. (That’s what patents are for.) But game maps and
storyline are not functional elements and I don’t understand how you
isolate your production staff from the old work and still get enough
resemblance that they could be substantially similar.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>M<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<div class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>
<hr size=2 width="100%" align=center tabindex=-1>
</span></font></div>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Tahoma;font-weight:bold'>From:</span></font></b><font size=2
face=Tahoma><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Tahoma'>
mdtiemann@gmail.com [mailto:mdtiemann@gmail.com] <b><span style='font-weight:
bold'>On Behalf Of </span></b>Michael Tiemann<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Friday, December 04, 2009
2:34 PM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> Vlad Stanimir<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Cc:</span></b> license-discuss@opensource.org<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> Re: Clean room reverse
engineering</span></font><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I think you should
consult a lawyer to get specific legal advice. Or, as DVD Jon did, just
do it, and hope the EFF protects you!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 7:03 AM, Vlad Stanimir <<a
href="mailto:vladbv2006@gmail.com">vladbv2006@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I was considering a clean room reverse engineering project of a
proprietary computer game, but i am unsure of the legality of doing this
especially of things like game maps and storyline.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><br>
M<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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