Is making an exporter for any maker legal if the game follows all 6 conditions?

[Fira]

The 6 conditions are in bold below.


I am talking about
IG (Indie Game) Maker
RPG Maker 2000
RPG Maker 2003
RPG Maker VX Ace
RPG Maker VX
RPG Maker MV
etc.



All in game is not pirated

All in game is harmless to every computer

All in game is harmless to every computer file

All in game is for less than one unjustifyingly mean reason

All in game is harmless to every computer files

All in game is harmless to all computers




Basically for example if a man named George makes a game with RPG Maker VX
that follows all 6 conditions up above and then He makes a program that changes his
.exe game made with RPG Maker VX into an HTML 5 game would that be legal?

 

[Andar]

No - he can't replace the exe at all and it is impossible to recreate the engine in any legal way.

In all makers before MV the graphical functions were handled by a closed-source Windows DLL whose specifications were never officially revealed, and reverse engineering is especially forbidden by the EULA. All data on that part of the engine on the internet is illegally created and any use of it is illegal as well.
Additionally, all RTP are licenced for use in the RM-Engines only, you'll be breaking laws if you use them in self-programmed engines as well.

The only way to legally export any of the makers you mentioned is by creating a wrapper that simulates Windows and place the entire engine and exes unchanged inside that wrapper - something like Wine for Linux for example or similiar programs for MacOS.
For that to work, you'll need a lot of processing power (because you're simulating a windows on a different computer), which is why all exports to android or iOS or HTML5 or similiar are simply illegal.
There are only two exceptions to that, two programs that were prototyped to android to test official Ace converters, but that program was abandoned due to too many problems.

So no, what you're proposing is always illegal and it doesn't matter what conditions you place, because the one condition you have to obey is not to break the EULA, and that means programming such a converter is always illegal unless you get official License from Enterbrain/Kadokawa.
And don't bother to ask for that since RMMV already has that option of HTML5-export build-in.

 

[TomatoKing]

While I honestly don't care about the topic at hand, I will just comment on a couple things.

Mods around here throw the word 'illegal' so much it loses all it's meaning, probably to scare the children in the forums like some form of boogeyman. Reverse engineering is not illegal, and depending on where you are, for example the US and UK, an EULA does not override local laws, so for example, degica/kadokawa may revoke your RM license for reverse engineering parts or the whole of RM as it contradicts their terms of service, but calling it 'illegal' is extremely wrong as it won't land anyone in jail.

Second, file formats are not protected by any law, there's simply no way to protect file formats on any jurisdiction, see 'microsoft office vs wordperfect' or 'adobe vs everyone' lol, there's a reason why any text software can edit .doc files and any graphic software can edit .psd files even when they are propietary formats. One game example that comes to mind is Hotline Miami, which was originally made on Game Maker 8.1 but the creators had to make a new compiler (which they called Game Baker) to get past GM8.1 limitations and export to consoles and add steam integration, under the hood it's still all game maker language and all the sprites and scripts and maps are on GM's propietary format.

Basically, if you made a compiler that grabs whatever files RM outputs and make it spit an .exe, that's completely legal, because Degica/Kadokawa's eula DO NOT supersede your local laws. They might revoke your license if they chose to do so, but nothing beyond that, aka they cannot trial you because you are not doing anything ILLEGAL.

The only thing true is regarding the RTP assets, those you licensed to use only on RM software and doing otherwise will warrant having your license revoked.

In short, please stop throwing the word illegal around so much, and just say the truth that breaking RM's EULA will warrant a license suspension, I know it doesn't sound as scary as yelling 'illegal this, illegal that', but at least it's more correct.

 

[Andar]

@TomatoKing while the EULA does not supersede local law, I've yet to see a single western country where reverse-engineering is unconditionally allowed. Whereever it is allowed, there are specific restrictions on the cases when it is allowed - because otherwise this would break patents and a lot of specific other problems.

Please give a link to the law that you state that allows reverse engineering - because whenever I see someone throwing those assumptions around (for example the "fair use" as another point that is also much more restricted than people believe), they're just repeating wrong internet memes and cannot backup their assumptions in any way.
No, I'm not a layer and I have been corrected on some minor points that are different between the countries before - but that is exactly why I would like to get a link to the laws you're supposedly citing here.

And by the way - revoking the licence will also revoke the licence to use any of the arts, which means that you cannot use the RTP in any exe that is not officially accepted. And that is also a fact: the RTP is only licenced for use in the official engines, it cannot be used in any other engine legally, which alone will make any such engine useless for most people (completely independent on whether the point about reverseengineering stands or not). That is because you would have to remove the entire RTP (sound and graphics) from any game using those exporters anyway.

 

[TomatoKing]

Please give a link to the law that you state that allows reverse engineering - because whenever I see someone throwing those assumptions around (for example the "fair use" as another point that is also much more restricted than people believe), they're just repeating wrong internet memes and cannot backup their assumptions in any way.

[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality[/URL]

Here's the link to the legal information institute site since the one quoted 404'ed [URL='https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201']https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 [/URL]This applies only to US, most countries do not even have any legislation regarding reverse engineering, mine included (no legislation == not illegal).

There's a reason why Nintendo has never managed to shut down any emulators even when they are actively reverse engineering their hardware and software, and such has been said in courts in the past, as long as they are not using copyrighted code they are free to continue, to the point that emulators nowadays are getting financial backing in the open without the big N being able to do anything about it.

File formats are not protected because some freedom of information thing, imagine if the company/person that developed .jpg could have a grip on the format, what would happen if the software stopped working with modern OS and said person/company was dead and not releasing any updates?

And I explicitly said that a person wouldn't be able to use the RTP assets on a game compiled outside of rm, no clue why you are going on that, my point is that calling such a compiler "illegal" is just plain wrong. Yeah it would be useless to most people, but we are not talking about most people here, we are talking about an specific case that would require an specific compiler to work with rpg maker formats to get past some limitation or whatever, which 'most people' wouldn't ever have a problem with.

 

[Andar]

@TomatoKing
However, you also did state wrong assumptions and even in that linked topic you misread one of the specific conditions

First, as stated here (it was cited in other wikipedia topics as the relevant rulung, but I give the original link):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Baystate_Technologies,_Inc.
The EULAs do supersede general law in the US (and in some other countries) and will restrict fair use laws if the original company intends that.

Second, reverse engineering for interoperability is not the same as reverse engineering for a replacement. The rules you linked would apply to a reverse engineering for importing to a different editor, but reverse engineering to replace the program itself is not the same.
You might also be interested in the following link of the people who want to be able to reverse-engineer and who list the many points that need to be considered when trying to do this:
https://www.eff.org/de/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq
(for example the fact that they suggest splitting the reverse-engineering team from the team that uses the results of reverse engineering to prevent accidental copying of the code, which would be copyright infringment in almost all cases)

 

[TomatoKing]

That would apply if people where reverse engineering the RPG Maker software itself, not the files it generates.

If someone went and made a RPG Maker replacement that uses the same file formats and even the same backend (pixi.js is open source) that would be perfectly legal as long as it's not using any propietary code(or reverse engineering, but why would anyone need to reverse engineer a simple database manager is beyond me).

This is a hard topic that it's being written as time goes by, EULAs being enforceable is not even clear, with legal precedents for both https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-u...#Enforceability_of_EULAs_in_the_United_States

In the UK for example EULAs have been getting lots of fire since quite a while http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7252707.stm, I remember reading an article about how in UK and EULA cannot force you to waiver your fair use rights, but I can't find it, and this is talking about developed western countries, if someone in Russia, Brazil or worse, China, decided to make an RPG Maker clone, good luck getting them to court on their home countries, best you could do is send them a DMCA and hope their ISP gets scared.

And lastly, let's get real here, this thread is akin to "I will make an mmorpg, just need someone to give me the online script", the chances of someone making a compiler for a game using RM file formats is slim to none, I see a bigger chance of a game requiring that just being ported to another engine.

 

[Andar]

If someone went and made a RPG Maker replacement that uses the same file formats and even the same backend (pixi.js is open source)

But that is the catch - only RMMV uses pixi.js and javascript, and I specifically excluded MV from my first answer.

All older makers use a closed source windows library from which not even the commands to display the graphics are (officially) known, so there is no way to replicate that without reverse-engineering. And a complete replacement of that part without that knowledge, while theoretically possible would not only be a lot more work but also run the risk of breaking a lot of the existing scripts.

Just for your info: about a year before MV came out, Enterbrain abandoned a project to replace that DLL with a better one (one that doesn't have the limit on 640x480 for example) even after a public beta test of the new library, because they couldn't get that replacement to work in a stable way. And they had the full source of the original available, something anyone else would not have.