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Does anyone happen to have an explainer article handy or some background on the boom in “decompilations?” There’s this and I also saw something about Cool Boarders 2…

Why this method of uprezzing? Why now?

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AI has made it much easier, basically.

It had been done here and there in some cases, but now it can be applied as a general thing to many projects.

That’s probably true, but I hope not. Decompiling works because fair use copyright law allows it. Decompiling with AI is not creative and I doubt would stand up in court as transformative.

These kinds of hobby projects either successfully hide from Nintendo's legal threats or exist at their leisure, anyhow. Fair use arguments mean relatively little to them, and no-one doing this kind of thing has the money to stand up to them.

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