Yuzu to pay $2.4 Million Dollars in Damage to Nintendo. Citra also affected. Asks Judge to set Legal Precedent against other Emulators.

[starsmine]

1 minute ago, jagdtigger said:

Not an issue, like at all. You just have to use differentials, these only contain the parts you changed and have ownership of. The company cannot do anything against that.

what in the world are you talking about

[jagdtigger]

4 minutes ago, starsmine said:

what in the world are you talking about

I think it is pretty clear but okay. Differentials (often called diff) are simple files, these files though are not complete. As the name suggest these contain the differences between two files, it can be used to restore the original file or to modify the original into the new file. Legally speaking this pretty much pulls out the teeth of any legal action attempted by a company because these files only include the changes you made in the file and useless without the original file (for which you need to have the game).

[starsmine]

25 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

I think it is pretty clear but okay. Differentials (often called diff) are simple files, these files though are not complete. As the name suggest these contain the differences between two files, it can be used to restore the original file or to modify the original into the new file. Legally speaking this pretty much pulls out the teeth of any legal action attempted by a company because these files only include the changes you made in the file and useless without the original file (for which you need to have the game).

no amount of differentials can protect you for distributing a copy of mickey mouse when its someone else's IP. Again, I stress its the distribution that is the issue. Yes, difference files can largely protect you from encroaching on the game's IP. But that isnt the issue anyone is discussing here.

[jagdtigger]

28 minutes ago, starsmine said:

no amount of differentials can protect you for distributing a copy of mickey mouse when its someone else's IP. Again, I stress its the distribution that is the issue. Yes, difference files can largely protect you from encroaching on the game's IP. But that isnt the issue anyone is discussing here.

The emulator devs werent distributing that mouse either so IDK why you bring it up, either way im not interested in pointless bickering after sony famously lost its case against the ps emulator (/edit which was actually sold commercially) in court.
And as a matter of fact if you use diff files you aint largerly protected, you are fully protected because the diff files only contain your work.

[Kisai]

2 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The emulator devs werent distributing that mouse either so IDK why you bring it up, either way im not interested in pointless bickering after sony famously lost its case against the ps emulator in court.
And as a matter of fact if you use diff files you aint largerly protected, you are fully protected because the diff files only contain your work.

Sony only lost because the only thing they could assert a copyright on was the "Playstation" logo that was used to prove that the disc was authentic. It was such a ridiculous over-reach because the image was on the game disc, not the firmware. The fact that it showed the "Licensed by Sony" was because the game disc was programmed to do so. To do otherwise was not to follow the game, and Sony's argument was that since Bleem displayed this, it was infringing on it's trademarks.

https://casetext.com/case/sony-computer-entertainment-v-connectix-corp-2

Quote

On January 27, 1999, Sony filed a complaint alleging copyright infringement and other causes of action against Connectix. Sony subsequently moved for a preliminary injunction on the grounds of copyright and trademark infringement. The district court granted the motion, enjoining Connectix:

 

(1) from copying or using the Sony BIOS code in the development of the Virtual Game Station for Windows; and

 

 

(2) from selling the Virtual Game Station for Macintosh or the Virtual Game  Station for Windows. Order on Mot. for Prelim. Inj. at 27. The district court also impounded all Connectix's copies of the Sony BIOS and all copies of works based upon or incorporating Sony BIOS. Id. at 27-28. Connectix now appeals from this order.

Quote

Id. at 1527-28 (emphasis added). In Sega, we recognized that intermediate copying could constitute copyright infringement  even when the end product did not itself contain copyrighted material. Id. at 1518-19. But this copying nonetheless could be protected as a fair use if it was "necessary" to gain access to the functional elements of the software itself. 

 

Like the absurdity is right here:

Quote

We also reject the argument, urged by Sony, that Connectix infringed the Sony copyright by repeatedly observing the Sony BIOS in an emulated environment, thereby making repeated copies of the Sony BIOS. These intermediate copies could not have been "necessary" under Sega, contends Sony, because Connectix engineers could have disassembled the entire Sony BIOS first, then written their own Connectix BIOS, and used the Connectix BIOS to develop the Virtual Game Station hardware emulation software. We accept Sony's factual predicate for the limited purpose of this appeal. Our doing so, however, does not aid Sony.

Sony's claim that every time Connectix launched their emulated environment, it created a new copy of the BIOS. You know how absurd this is? It's the same absurdity of saying that a physical CD-ROM is one copy, and every time you launched the emulator it created a new copy of the CD-ROM. Which clearly doesn't happen in any emulator. As soon as you close the emulator that copy, partial or whole is gone, no different than when the actual console plays it.

 

These companies will absolutely overreach in ways that to computer savvy people just look like someone arguing a screenshot of a game is an equal copyright infringement to copying the game program code itself.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

9 hours ago, Kisai said:

Modding is only tolerated in certain games because the developer says modding is allowed as long as certain rules are followed.  The rule at the top of those lists is typically "no commercial gain", so you can't sell the mod,

yes, that's what im saying though... its done en mass anyway,  so, from my view, that makes your point moot in practicality. that's also why i said you're right *on principle*.  in practice you're factually wrong, most of the time.

 

its just that sometimes companies, especially nintendo go after certain things (but usually not those "injected" but definitely *paid* mods funny enough  - they go after private servers or pirate sites or indeed,  ridiculously, after "fan translations" -- the most anti consumer thing ever) but the point is the rarity of them doing that. 

its a huge uphill battle for the "ip holders" and usually against their own clientele,  the very people they make money of - hence this isnt even close to as clear cut as you seem to think. again you're saying paid mods a no go... in reality its a big yes-yes. (not that im a particular fan of that, but its just reality) 

 

maybe im not understanding the point you're trying to make? 

[Mark Kaine]

9 hours ago, starsmine said:

what in the world are you talking about

im not sure what they're talking about either, but this kind of argument comes up often - it's much simpler than that! 

again so someone mods "ip A" into "game B"... fine. cool.

 

so now the ip holder of game B "sues" the modder... for what exactly?  for providing a blender model that made out of an ip from a completely different company??  

 

yeah good luck with that, ig?

 

 

OR does "ip holder A" sue the poor guy for providing a model made from their ip to anyone who wants it really?

 

That has a lot more potential for success tbh, but the problem is there are literally *millions* who provide these models... ip holder A would basically need to sue them all! there's no "precedence". just the harsh reality that they'd need to sue *millions* of alleged fans of their very own ip - and the worst part is? success isnt guaranteed at all because most of those "fans" could probably very easily claim "fair use" or similar regularies.

 

Do you see now why this is rarely done, and basically only insane companies like nintendo try, occasionally? 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

im not sure what they're talking about either, but this kind of argument comes up often - it's much simpler than that! 

again so someone mods "ip A" into "game B"... fine. cool.

 

 

It's not that simple to do. Here's a good example:

The most common mods for Lethal Company

- The Injection tool for Unity

- The "API" that grabs Leathal Company functionality

- A mod that allows more than 4 players

- Monsters that imitate other players (skinwalkers)

- More items slots

- Allow players to join late

- Free Flashlight slot

- More emotes* = potential IP infringement

- Add a new monster

- Mimics

- More suits = Implied IP infringement (thumbnail shows Mario and Luigi colors)

 

If the game developer has no interest in telling modders to knock it off, eventually you start getting mods that are a problem, ones that allow the players to insert any commercial music or any costume, or any emotes that might be taken from other games. So now the game becomes a potential liability of certain packages of mods are often used together, streamed online, and so forth.

 

The most dangerous thing you can do as a streamer/youtuber is play a modded game, or an emulated game not on the hardware it was purchased for.  People who use mods as a cheat or a crutch, often don't realize that certain functionality is not in the game, and will be exposed (which violates Twitch's TOS for example.)

 

When you start trying to get money out of people for mods to a game,

1. You don't own the game

2. You likely don't own the assets you put into the mod

3. You likely don't own the third party tools that make the mod work (Eg the the most common tool for modding unity)

There are often Open Source tools that allow you to distribute the tool as long as you include the source code or a means to download the source code. If you include GPL tools, it gets really sticky and some interpretations of the GPL means that even including the GPL tool means you must GPL everything. Which you can't clearly do since you don't own the software being modded.

 

The Terms and conditions of sites like Patreon, Kofi, Paypal, etc expressly forbid using their platform to distribute anything you do not have a license to distribute.

 

Streaming platforms like Twitch and Youtube forbid the upload or streaming of content you do not own or have licensed to use. If you monetize content you do not own, you are likely to get copyright claims on it, or strikes (especially from Japanese companies and other youtubers.)

 

You can not charge for access to IP you do not own, ever. If you do this without the consent of the IP holder, that tends to snowball (Eg people using discord to watch pirated videos, or play games that would result in ToS violations of youtube.) Many people use Discord as a means to side-step copyright.

[Mark Kaine]

37 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

It's not that simple to do. Here's a good example:

The most common mods for Lethal Company

- The Injection tool for Unity

- The "API" that grabs Leathal Company functionality

- A mod that allows more than 4 players

- Monsters that imitate other players (skinwalkers)

- More items slots

- Allow players to join late

- Free Flashlight slot

- More emotes* = potential IP infringement

- Add a new monster

- Mimics

- More suits = Implied IP infringement (thumbnail shows Mario and Luigi colors)

 

If the game developer has no interest in telling modders to knock it off, eventually you start getting mods that are a problem, ones that allow the players to insert any commercial music or any costume, or any emotes that might be taken from other games. So now the game becomes a potential liability of certain packages of mods are often used together, streamed online, and so forth.

 

The most dangerous thing you can do as a streamer/youtuber is play a modded game, or an emulated game not on the hardware it was purchased for.  People who use mods as a cheat or a crutch, often don't realize that certain functionality is not in the game, and will be exposed (which violates Twitch's TOS for example.)

 

When you start trying to get money out of people for mods to a game,

1. You don't own the game

2. You likely don't own the assets you put into the mod

3. You likely don't own the third party tools that make the mod work (Eg the the most common tool for modding unity)

There are often Open Source tools that allow you to distribute the tool as long as you include the source code or a means to download the source code. If you include GPL tools, it gets really sticky and some interpretations of the GPL means that even including the GPL tool means you must GPL everything. Which you can't clearly do since you don't own the software being modded.

 

The Terms and conditions of sites like Patreon, Kofi, Paypal, etc expressly forbid using their platform to distribute anything you do not have a license to distribute.

 

Streaming platforms like Twitch and Youtube forbid the upload or streaming of content you do not own or have licensed to use. If you monetize content you do not own, you are likely to get copyright claims on it, or strikes (especially from Japanese companies and other youtubers.)

 

You can not charge for access to IP you do not own, ever. If you do this without the consent of the IP holder, that tends to snowball (Eg people using discord to watch pirated videos, or play games that would result in ToS violations of youtube.) Many people use Discord as a means to side-step copyright.

this is the legal side of it, which i already said, in certain cases you're absolutely right and its flat out illegal,  but not in all cases, and that's where the issues for the ip holders start and it ends with them basically having to sue millions (billions?) of customers period.

 

So that's why most sane developers etc just let it fly...

 

There's only one real way to avoid any of that and thats to make sure your game is 100% unmoddable, otherwise you're just kinda as guilty as the modders you're trying to prosecute lol.

 

Reality is simply most games can and are modded in ways you described,  and *no one* does anything about it (only occasionally to say they're "doing something ") 

 

its very similar (and even simpler) with emus... as long you don't distribute illegal files aka bios or games you're fine.  yuzu apparently didn't follow those "rules"... and that's how we (they) got here. 

[Kisai]

41 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

 

There's only one real way to avoid any of that and thats to make sure your game is 100% unmoddable, otherwise you're just kinda as guilty as the modders you're trying to prosecute lol.

No, the way to ensure it is to expressly write in the EULA that the user is expressly forbidden from modifying the software without the owner of the software's consent, and then layout how to obtain consent if the game exposes functionality (eg an API) to use it.

 

41 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Reality is simply most games can and are modded in ways you described,  and *no one* does anything about it (only occasionally to say they're "doing something ") 

Only really popular stuff (eg Skyrim) that has a certain audience (eg ... nude mods) tend to have actions taken against them, and only because the way the modder has gone about it makes the IP holder of the game extremely unhappy. It's one thing to repaint the texture, it's another to resell the model with the repainted texture.

 

There are cases, where players have extracted assets/models from games and then used them for other things (Eg VRChat) that clearly violate IP, but you'd only know it does if you were familiar with it.

 

41 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

its very similar (and even simpler) with emus... as long you don't distribute illegal files aka bios or games you're fine.  yuzu apparently didn't follow those "rules"... and that's how we (they) got here. 

It's been pretty well established that emulators are tolerated as long as no software within the emulator is included. So PS3/PS4/PS5/Xbox360/WiiU/3DS/Switch firmware's are the entire OS to the console, and in some cases (like the PS3 and Xbox360) it's been possible to obtain the firmware directly from the manufacturer because the console's hard drive has been wiped or replaced. 

 

What seems like happened is that someone within the Yuzu development decided to package things up and it escaped who it was intended for, thus giving Nintendo plenty of Ammo to shut it down.

 

 

[Arokhantos]

Best thing you can do against this is not buy Nintendo and do not play them either, they'll eventually have to move to PC as well just like Sony, just boycott Nintendo fully, why should you even have to go thru all the loops and hoops just to play a game optimally, that's for Nintendo to fix if they do not wanna fix just boycott them, this may be tough at first but is easy on the long run.

Do not even make emulators for Nintendo consoles let them feel what its like to be boycotted.

[jagdtigger]

21 hours ago, Kisai said:

Sony only lost because the only thing they could assert a copyright on was the "Playstation" logo that was used to prove that the disc was authentic.

Way to belittle a legal precedent. Sony lost because a clean room amulator is not violating any of their rights, even if it is a paid for commercial SW.

[jagdtigger]

13 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

im not sure what they're talking about either

Did you even read my response to that?

[Kisai]

35 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Way to belittle a legal precedent. Sony lost because a clean room amulator is not violating any of their rights, even if it is a paid for commercial SW.

It wasn't a clean room emulator. The entire lawsuit was an assertation that merely copying the BIOS in any shape was copyright infringement, and creating hundreds of copies of it by merely examining it. By any reasonable person's sense of how software works, they know that's insane.

 

But that is exactly the stupidity used by Japanese companies when they want to claim copyright infringement. "ooh, you used this tiny fragment of an image that is seen for 2 seconds when the console is booted up, pay us damages like you made a counterfeit copy of the BIOS every time a bleem user launched the emulator."

 

We've seen this by other head-up-their-butt Japanese companies, and they rightfully get torn to shreds in the public for doing this. Nintendo seems to not care about their PR because they know they're the only ones going to be producing Mario, Zelda and Pokemon games.  There is nothing Sony or Microsoft has that necessitates owning their consoles, they have no platform exclusive properties that you need their console for. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 3/7/2024 at 9:25 AM, Kisai said:

No, the way to ensure it is to expressly write in the EULA that the user is expressly forbidden from modifying the software without the owner of the software's consent, and then layout how to obtain consent if the game exposes functionality (eg an API) to use it.

except no one reads this stuff??

 

like this is literally not the way to ensure your soft or hardware doesn't get reverse and forward engineered back and forth constantly because literally no one cares about a little "EULA" that may or may not has legal significance.  people just click "yes, let me play mario!"...

 

i don't understand why you're repeating this, i already said, yes, from a legal standpoint you're probably right, in practice this simply doesn't work  - to the point emulators actually aren't illegal *at all*. 

[Kisai]

10 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

except no one reads this stuff??

Doesn't mean it doesn't apply.

10 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

like this is literally not the way to ensure your soft or hardware doesn't get reverse and forward engineered back and forth constantly because literally no one cares about a little "EULA" that may or may not has legal significance.  people just click "yes, let me play mario!"...

There have been EULA's that have awarded customers for reading the EULA, you gonna tell me that everyone that didn't is entitled to the prize? No.

 

10 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

i don't understand why you're repeating this, i already said, yes, from a legal standpoint you're probably right, in practice this simply doesn't work  - to the point emulators actually aren't illegal *at all*. 

You only have to be legally right, to be right. I know nobody on the LTT forum is sincere about pretty much any topic, especially ones that involve highly litigious companies. I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm telling you, and anyone who potentially finds it by googling, what the sentiment is.

 

Nobody does their homework by consulting LTT any more than they take the first answer from google. People do not use the search button, or you'd realize that 99% of the stuff posted outside of the news forum, has been asked before. People ask things here because they know they are more likely to get a serious answer, or at least an opinion on a subject, rather than trying to google search the solution to a problem when the top 100 or so links to any one specific tech problem is nothing but useless generative AI or plagiarized answers from here, reddit, quora, stackexchange, etc. 

 

 

[jagdtigger]

On 3/7/2024 at 6:39 PM, Kisai said:

It wasn't a clean room emulator.

I beg to differ, sony lost because non of their code was present in the end product, the BIOS was only used for reverse engineering. I think that is pretty much a clean room trait.

[Kisai]

On 3/12/2024 at 1:53 AM, jagdtigger said:

I beg to differ, sony lost because non of their code was present in the end product, the BIOS was only used for reverse engineering. I think that is pretty much a clean room trait.

That's not how a clean room works.

 

Company A's software, Person B decompiles Company A's software, and writes a document on how it works.

Company C, talks to Person B to get the document. They are not permitted to EVER see the Company A's software.

 

This is why source code leaks of commercial software are dangerous, because there is a 100% possibility that a developer of Company C will peek at Company A's source code to "make it work better", but doing that violates necessary clean room reverse engineering point.

 

Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corporation, is why BIOS's are copyrightable at all. This is what killed the initial market for Apple and IBM clones. The company that is known as Phoenix Technologies created their BIOS using clean room design, which is also what Compaq did. ReactOS is also that. Sony vs Connectix, realize lost on the "copied the BIOS" they didn't clean room reverse engineer it. Sony bought Connectix to keep it from selling the product.

 

People rarely understand the Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corp. lawsuit. The entire lawsuit was about calling it a "SONY PLAYSTATION" emulator, and using the trademarks.

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/biztech/articles/11sony.html

Quote

The court, in a 3-0 ruling, relied on its 1993 decision in another case that allowed reverse engineering of a copyright computer program when it was the only way to gain access to the program's non-copyrightable "ideas and functional elements."

 

Connectix is covered by that ruling, even if it could have used another development method that copied Sony's BIOS fewer times, said the opinion by Judge William Canby. He said the law does not require the least possible amount of copying, a conclusion disputed by Gilliland, Sony's lawyer.

 

Canby also said Connectix did not merely duplicate Sony's product, but created an innovation that "affords opportunity for game play in new environments." That made Connectix a "legitimate competitor in the market for platforms on which Sony and Sony-licensed games can be played," he said.

 

You have to understand that the legal argument here is "Connectix is creating counterfeit Playstations", not "Connectix reversed engineered the Sony BIOS." Sony likely could have completely won the lawsuit if their goal wasn't to shut it down. No, the precedent established is that the emulator "is a legal product" , distributing it with a BIOS that someone else made illegal copies of is not. The VGS does not contain "an illegal copy of the Sony BIOS" but it does show Sony trademarks because the boot sequence of the Playstation uses the display of "PlayStation(tm)" those trademarks in the BIOS to play legal software. If it doesn't display it, it doesn't boot.

 

 

[BrandonTech.05]

I'm not surprised that they just gave up. With a giant like Nintendo, they would have been squashed like a bug. There's no shot they made crazy money off of this and Nintendo has the money to fight this and has good ground to and would likely win. But it's true this is likely a huge step backwards in emulation and it certainly is an end of an era.

[Mark Kaine]

On 3/12/2024 at 12:23 PM, BrandonT.05 said:

I'm not surprised that they just gave up. With a giant like Nintendo, they would have been squashed like a bug. There's no shot they made crazy money off of this and Nintendo has the money to fight this and has good ground to and would likely win. But it's true this is likely a huge step backwards in emulation and it certainly is an end of an era.

some years ago (?) they (your family friendly totally not mafia style company nintendo) "shut down" a pirate site, it was "huge news"... know what actually changed?  n o t h i n g.

 

this is such a weird case wouldn't surprise me if some weird case of money laundering going on... random ass emulator "company" sits on 2.4m, give me a break, we're definitely not getting the full story here  (thanks, "verge") 

[wanderingfool2]

16 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

some years ago (?) they (your family friendly totally not mafia style company nintendo) "shut down" a pirate site, it was "huge news"... know what actually changed?  n o t h i n g.

 

this is such a weird case wouldn't surprise me if some weird case of money laundering going on... random ass emulator "company" sits on 2.4m, give me a break, we're definitely not getting the full story here  (thanks, "verge") 

It wasn't some random emulator.  It literally was the best emulator for Switch which garnered a lot of attention and had $29,000+/month in Patreon donations [lots of people essentially were paying for early access].  They also had things like Citra as well.  So overall they could have amassed a decent amount of money; not to mention that no where does it say they actually had $2.4 million at their disposal...just that's what was meant as settlement.

 

When they effectively have to file for bankruptcy all loans and debts will have to be paid and iirc the bankruptcy stuff Nintendo might essentially have to fight for their share of the remainder of the assets.  So you would want a settlement that still bankrupts a company, but also one large enough that you can recover the most amount [without having to divvy it up with any other lenders, if that makes sense]

 

The more and more Nintendo wins these things the more it does actually change things, they will be able to use this settlement as a way to strongarm others that they wish to 

[starsmine]

18 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

some years ago (?) they (your family friendly totally not mafia style company nintendo) "shut down" a pirate site, it was "huge news"... know what actually changed?  n o t h i n g.

 

this is such a weird case wouldn't surprise me if some weird case of money laundering going on... random ass emulator "company" sits on 2.4m, give me a break, we're definitely not getting the full story here  (thanks, "verge") 

I don't understand why people keep saying the LLC had 2.4M. they didn't. that number was chosen as its MORE then what the LLC can pay out, aka the LLC and any assets it may have are now Nintendo's and everyone else moves on fine. Nintendo is unlikely to ever see 2.4M, but the point is that no asset will escape due to an oversite.

[jagdtigger]

On 3/12/2024 at 12:11 PM, Kisai said:

Company A's software, Person B decompiles Company A's software, and writes a document on how it works.

Company C, talks to Person B to get the document. They are not permitted to EVER see the Company A's software.

Lat time i read about this the separation between the reverse engineering and coding team was enough, didnt require a totally different company. (Its not practical and doesnt add anything. If the devs want they can still talk directly whether its just separate teams or separate comapny.)

[Mark Kaine]

20 minutes ago, starsmine said:

I don't understand why people keep saying the LLC had 2.4M. they didn't. that number was chosen as its MORE then what the LLC can pay out, aka the LLC and any assets it may have are now Nintendo's and everyone else moves on fine. Nintendo is unlikely to ever see 2.4M, but the point is that no asset will escape due to an oversite.

yeah i know they don't literally have 2.4m, but tbh i also didn't think they weren't supposed to actually pay...

well... assets...? this all doesn't make any sense...

 

i get it nintendo forced this on them but... eh, on the other hand really i don't think we're getting the full picture... maybe its not money laundering,  but something about this all stinks big time ... 

 

going back to - well known - pirate site that was shut down ... why didn't they also have to pay "2.4m"?

 

or asking differently, what exactly did yuzu do to deserve this treatment? there's no reason for them to ever pay this, why'd they agree? what exactly happened here? Again we're obvious not getting the full story, like at all. They "settled" who exactly settled (names) and why? 

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Lat time i read about this the separation between the reverse engineering and coding team was enough, didnt require a totally different company. (Its not practical and doesnt add anything. If the devs want they can still talk directly whether its just separate teams or separate comapny.)

The point was that the developer who does the reverse engineering can not work on the thing that is developed from the reverse engineering. For the sake of liability, you'd want it to be separate companies.  That may just be a single person independent contractor, but it's still a legally distinct entity.

 

 

The reason it has to be this way is because you don't want to be accused of copying the product. The person who writes the documentation of how it works does.

 

More to the point, look at coding AI's and see how easy it is TODAY for some misappropriated code to wind up on someone elses project, than then is perpetuated into multiple projects that depend on that thing.

 

Humans have a tendancy to remember things, but not why they remember it. So if you learned some technique to do a thing from a software package you reversed engineered, you might put that technique into another software product subconsciously and it later comes back to bite you upon the discovery of the reverse engineering. Who knows. It's a low risk, but not a no-risk.