Comment by austin-cheney

No, that was never a defense. Replication of the work artifacts without literal copy/paste can still be a violation. It depends on just how similar the works are as demonstrated to a civil court jury.

At the same time complete recreations are not copyright violations. For example ZeldaClassic.com is not a violation of copyright against the original game. The final products appear almost like a clone, but the underlying work is completely different. Copyright law protects work artifacts, not ideas or assembled constructions.