Because even the possibility that you implemented somebody else’s proprietary code from memory or inspiration opens up a lot of legal issues.
And while you may win there’s no winners when you or your employer has to pay your side of legal fees. It’s best to just avoid it to make that process easier.
Yes they do. And they’d need to look at your source code to prove you copied theirs. It’d be basically impossible to prove unless you were stupid enough to have the GTA V source code on your work machine.
Peep the code on a website, and they’ll have no evidence and the case will get dismissed for being frivolous. Do you think Rockstar is omniscient? People look at the source code, then leave the company for a competitor every week.
Code can’t even be patented, so unless you copy some propriety process for computing physics or something, that they have a patent on, then they really have no legal standing.
This meme of “don’t look at it” is very ignorant to the reality of professional software development. Our memories aren’t wiped when we switch jobs and they’d have to prove you didn’t pick that idea up from another job, a forum, a colleague, or even a dream.
If this includes the euphoria physics engine and someone copies it… it will be incredibly easy to prove that it’s stolen.
Sure if you copy the whole thing. But if you treat it like another resource like Stack Overflow then the only way to get caught is if you put the code on your work machine.
People quit their job and move to a company every week and the knowledge of rockstars engine doesn’t leave their brain.
Depends on which country you’re in. I would bet if you do it in Russia there will be zero consequences.
when you or your employer has to pay your side of legal fees
Where I live, the losing side must pay for all legal fees
Also to add to this, you are disqualified from contributing code to the WINE project if you’ve seen parts of the Windows source code for this exact same reason.
Directly, probably not. But if you work on an engine team or on a game and there’s some future lawsuit implying that the methods and techniques match their stuff then it will be costly. Companies would rather just avoid the potential liability.
Here’s an article discussing some aspects of Nintendo leaks being risky for those who work on emulators
"Such dumps wouldn’t be of use to the project due to it being illegal to obtain and use code contained within said dumps,” they said via Twitter DM. “Using code from dumps like that can taint the project and be active grounds for Nintendo to pursue legal action against it.”
“Having a 16 plus year old emulator project go up in smoke isn’t something I’d want to happen. I’ve already seen a few comments on Reddit saying something along the lines of, ‘Well, why don’t you just make use of it but change it up a little before using it’, which, uhh, is a profound lack of perspective,” Lioncache said. “Legally, you generally don’t get a second chance about these sorts of things if legal action actually gets taken.”
