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Legal & Compliance

Disclaimer: We aren’t lawyers! The following information references specific legal statutes regarding software interoperability and reverse engineering simply to clearly demonstrate our commitment to strictly lawful development.

Project Intent

Rakata is an open-source research project and software library strictly designed to build interoperability with the data formats used by Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR).

  • Our Goal: We want to empower users to access, read, edit, and safely modify their own legally purchased game files on modern operating systems using open-source tools.
  • No DRM Circumvention: This project completely avoids the game executable. We do not bypass, strip, or defeat any Digital Rights Management (DRM) or software encryption. We solely parse static data files (like .rim, .bif, and .mdl files) for the pure purpose of compatibility.
  • No Pirated Assets: This repository does not contain, distribute, or host any copyrighted game assets (art, sound, proprietary code, or binaries) owned by the original rights holders. You must supply your own legally obtained copy of the game to do anything useful with this software.

This project operates under the specific “Interoperability” exceptions provided by copyright law in major jurisdictions:

🇨🇦 Canada (Jurisdiction of Maintainer)

Under the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42), this project relies on Section 30.61, which permits the reproduction of a computer program for the purpose of:

  • (a) obtaining information that is necessary to allow the computer program to be compatible with another computer program; or
  • (b) correcting errors in the computer program.

🇺🇸 United States

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), this project operates under the 17 U.S.C. § 1201(f) exception for Reverse Engineering, which states:

  • (1) … a person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure… for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs…

🇪🇺 European Union (Host Jurisdiction - Codeberg)

Under Directive 2009/24/EC (Legal Protection of Computer Programs), this project adheres to Article 6 (Decompilation), which allows for the reproduction of code and translation of its form when:

  • (a) these acts are performed by the licensee or by another person having a right to use a copy of a program…
  • (b) the information necessary to achieve interoperability has not previously been readily available…
  • (c) these acts are confined to the parts of the original program which are necessary to achieve interoperability.

Acknowledgements

Portions of the initial file format logic were originally derived from research by the awesome PyKotor project (licensed under LGPL-3.0-or-later) and verified against original game binaries using clean-room reverse engineering techniques (via Ghidra and ret-sync).

  • This project is open-source and licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later.
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a trademark of its respective owners. This passion project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Bioware, LucasArts, or Disney in any way.