> The entire point of compiling is to strip that extra data out, leaving pure functional logic that doesn't even strictly match the source logic thanks to optimization.

I strongly disagree with this notion from even a conceptual (much less legal) level; the point of compilation is not to erase the algorithms the programmer implemented, just to optimize and implement them.

> You can compile a decomp into the same binary, but that's only to prove functional equivalence.

This is like saying that a translated book is only "functionally" identical to the original; there's a lot of precedent in copyright law for this not being the case, and I don't think any argument revolving around the transformativeness of the compilation process would fly at all.