Nintendo explains their Dolphin emulator DMCA, says the project ‘stifles innovation’
Nintendo explains their Dolphin emulator DMCA, says the project ‘stifles innovation’
by LinkWink
44 Comments
LinkWink
Full statement from Nintendo:
> Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers. This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo’s protection measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same.
carl562
What does me playing old games that no one wants my money for stifle creativity?
CriticalCrisiss
The simple solution is to remove the keys tied to Nintendo and require users to input them in themselves – which is exactly what Dolphin doesn’t want to do because it will alienate the casuals they were hoping to get with having the software as-is.
It’s a very easy fix but the Dolphin team has done everything they can to avoid doing it.
Asad_Farooqui
Just a reminder that emulators like these should be unambiguously protected under fair use law, as legal precedent has been established to protect their actions since the turn of the millennium.
The February 2000 decision in *Sony v. Connectix* upholds the existence of Dolphin today for the same reasons as emulators back then: reverse engineering for the sake of study, and fostering competition to avoid commercial monopolies. Here’s the key quote from that court ruling:
“Because the Virtual Game Station (AKA the PS1 emulator Sony was trying to sue at the time) is transformative, and does not merely supplant the PlayStation console, the Virtual Game Station is a legitimate competitor in the market for platforms on which Sony and Sony-licensed games can be played. For this reason, some economic loss by Sony as a result of this competition does not compel a finding of no fair use. Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly.”
If I’m missing crucial information for this specific maneuver please let me know. But just know that the law has been there to protect emulators like this for a long time now.
PuzzleheadedAlps6119
Ah, yes, because playing Pokemon FireRed on my laptop is clearly the biggest threat to innovation.
antoni_o_newman
Nintendo leaves so much money and innovation on table. It’s hilarious hearing this come from them.
noimdirtydan14
Stifle this dick Nintendo
BOty_BOI2370
It doesn’t stifle shit.
But it really doesn’t matter a whole lot because dolphin is still accessible by just downloading it. Which is always how I did it
MarcCDB
That’s some Apple level excuse
rawpower7
Piracy is a service problem, Nintendo.
mjxoxo1999
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” – Gabe Newell
Yeah, shut up Nintendo
MillionDollarMistake
There’s nothing innovative about locking software behind decades old hardware. I don’t know why Nintendo even bothered with this explanation when everyone reading it knows it’s BS.
Another_Road
Wouldn’t even need to pirate if they actually made their old games available.
toftr
A canned corporate response without much evidence
polarisone1
that is 100% BS.
Biplis
Lol “stifles innovation.” They’d also try telling you second-hand sales were illegal if they could get away with it.
dandigangi
sTiFlEs iNnOvAtIoN
TbaggingSince1990
Stifles the innovation of being able to scam you out of money for shitty ports that run at low frames and full of glitches somehow, remasters, and selling you a subscriptions for “classics” with an annoying border you have no option to turn off.
The_Greyarch
So it’s Emulation’s fault that Pokémon is regressing in terms of quality each and every new entry? So it’s emulation’s fault that Mario Strikers & Golf were entirely bare-bones? So it’s emulation’s fault that Animal Crossing New Horizons released with a fraction of the items & featured we’ve seen in the past? So it’s emulation’s fault that Nintendo isn’t offering most of their own darn games for sale?
I mean, Dolphin did this to themselves. For sure. But come on…
Jonnicom
From a legal standpoint, I think they’re within their rights, however from a moral standpoint, it’s just so trite.
They want to keep people from playing a library of games so they can attempt to resell them to people who already own them later – when in reality out of that whole library, I’d be shocked if even 10 percent of them saw re-releases.
Really it’s just hurting preservation efforts in the long run.
I will not buy digital copies of my old games for a third time. It’s just not happening.
ggthatman
The designers, composers and developers of old games already got paid for their work. Nintendo is making money of that work even decades later. Copyright law really is some bullshit. I believe after 10 to 20 years you made your profits. After that everything should already be public domain.
Owlbear27
“Nintendo, we want to play your old games! They’re a cherished part of video game history…but finding a copy of them for a reasonable price is basically impossible.”
“Oh cool. We’re glad you love our old games and enjoy playing them”
“Where are they?”
“You just have to buy the old console and the disk/cartridge and then you can play it”
“But that would cost me hundreds of dollars and you’d make no money off of it.”
“That’s right”
“You can make money by releasing it on modern hardware”
“I don’t want to”
“I don’t want to pay $200 to play Paper Mario 2…release it on Switch and I’ll gladly pay you”
“No”
“Okay, fine…I’m going to emulate it.”
“We’ll sue”
“But you’re not losing any money since you’re not selling the game”
“Enjoy paying $35 million, scumbag. At least we didn’t send the Pinkertons…but you might not be so lucky next time”
Janetrain
You know what sTiFLeS iNnOvAtiOn?
Dropping a legal guillotine on any given programmer/developer who tries to make a game based off a property that’s been completely ignored for 10+ years. *”You love our old game so much you’ve toiled away hours upon hours of your finite time to painstakingly carry on the franchise we’ve left to rot? Die in a fire – legally.”*
Fuck corporate greed and the laws that encourage it.
thethirdteacup
So Nintendo sent a response to Kotaku, a news website that they blacklisted?
susangz
Fuck Nintendo. They make really good games but their greed has no end.
leospeedleo
It “stifles Innovation” is the same bullshit Apple tried to use when the EU forced all electronic devices to use USB-C.
Because their USB 2 based lightning port is so much better 😂
Yeah, locking games behind old hardware that most people can’t get anymore surely is innovative Nintendo.
c_creme
I’m pretty sure either the Switch or Pokemon Scarlet/Violet were stifling innovation but potatoes tomatoes
QuinSanguine
I don’t see how that’s stifling innovation because Nintendo sucks at keeping these old games alive. What innovative approaches do they employ to keep these games alive?
Number 1, they shut down the shops. Number 2, they re-release the old games with a little extra content if we’re lucky and charge $40-$60 for them. Or number 3, they hide the games behind a paywall subscription.
There’s nothing original or innovative there. I think the translation of the pr speech here is, “emulation allows people to not pay us money for our old games that we ignore, or make cash grabs of, or are trying to build a comfy revenue stream with.”
At one point they had it right with the virtual consoles , $5 for a NES game for example was good and you could just buy the games you want on your Wii. Now Nintendo seems to be actively pushing people to emulate, they know it and so they aim to shut easy, err “illegal” emulators down.
[deleted]
What is the point? Nintendo is really acting like a child here. If you take down the official avenues to get an emulator it will just be distributed unofficially. If you somehow manage to remove it from the Internet someone will make a new one. I don’t have a GameCube anymore, let me play the game I like.
Carter0108
Oh fuck off Nintendo.
dark4181
Except it literally does the opposite. If anything Nintendo should open source old games to be ported by the community. They’d get far more accomplished by working with fans instead of fighting us.
Mona_Impact
They want to claim “stifles-innovation” then I’m going to argue Emulators encourage innovation.
Wide screen SNES games, wide screen 64/GC games, texture mods, higher frame rates, model replacements, rewind, fast forward, save states.. all things Emulators have innovated on and that Nintendo refuses to acknowledge and just pump out the same version (or some cases a worst version) of their older games.
They’re talking out of their ass with this, they want to do the least amount of work possible while the emulation community shows them how it’s actually done.
Chumbles1995
jesus fuck, just say youre protecting copyrights, what the fuck is this excuse? how does an emulator stifle innovation? how does running games made in the past stifle the fucking future? why is japan always so fucking weird about shit like this?
grahamaker93
Nintenshit can fuck off.
PlexSheep
Nintendo hates their fans.
tstorm004
That last sentence is hilarious considering Nintendo got it’s start in video games by cloning Pong, Space Invaders and Sega’s Duck Hunt
KingZGShadow
Innovation? How about add fucking cloud saves to pokemon games. If they existed when my GameStop certified pre-owned switch lite died I wouldn’t have fucking lost all my pokemon scarlet and sword data with all the event pokemon and my friend’s shiny Charizard. Stop fucking worrying about drm, copyright, and your own fucking ego and do things to make stuff for the better instead of taking away all the emulators that probably could have saved my ass and my pokemon saves a couple of weeks ago
smartyr228
Lmao suck my fuckin dick. I’m gonna emulate more Nintendo games just because I can now.
BlackJimmy88
How though?
Chrysoprase88
Innovation in the science of trying to make fans pay for the exact same game over and over again.
Twigling
I would counter that by saying that Nintendo’s approach stifles game preservation and, without emulation, many games will eventually just disappear.
But I guess that’s Nintendo’s ultimate aim – after all, if old games can’t easily be played then people have to buy new games …….
Knees0ck
This is the most Nintendo response that Nintendo has ever made.
Skullpuck
It stifles their store income. They can no longer individually dole out 30 year old games one at a time for $5 a month if you have this. Their NES “emulator” that’s on Switch is a joke. 20 games out of hundreds.
Ageman20XX
I’ve seen more innovation in the emulation and modding scenes over the last year than I’ve seen from Nintendo in the last decade, and that’s coming from a diehard Nintendo fanboy. Emulators have given rise to so much innovation in the amateur coding scene it’s incredible, and this response from Nintendo is just so obviously untrue it’s almost laughable. Almost.
44 Comments
Full statement from Nintendo:
> Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers. This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo’s protection measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same.
What does me playing old games that no one wants my money for stifle creativity?
The simple solution is to remove the keys tied to Nintendo and require users to input them in themselves – which is exactly what Dolphin doesn’t want to do because it will alienate the casuals they were hoping to get with having the software as-is.
It’s a very easy fix but the Dolphin team has done everything they can to avoid doing it.
Just a reminder that emulators like these should be unambiguously protected under fair use law, as legal precedent has been established to protect their actions since the turn of the millennium.
The February 2000 decision in *Sony v. Connectix* upholds the existence of Dolphin today for the same reasons as emulators back then: reverse engineering for the sake of study, and fostering competition to avoid commercial monopolies. Here’s the key quote from that court ruling:
“Because the Virtual Game Station (AKA the PS1 emulator Sony was trying to sue at the time) is transformative, and does not merely supplant the PlayStation console, the Virtual Game Station is a legitimate competitor in the market for platforms on which Sony and Sony-licensed games can be played. For this reason, some economic loss by Sony as a result of this competition does not compel a finding of no fair use. Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly.”
If I’m missing crucial information for this specific maneuver please let me know. But just know that the law has been there to protect emulators like this for a long time now.
Ah, yes, because playing Pokemon FireRed on my laptop is clearly the biggest threat to innovation.
Nintendo leaves so much money and innovation on table. It’s hilarious hearing this come from them.
Stifle this dick Nintendo
It doesn’t stifle shit.
But it really doesn’t matter a whole lot because dolphin is still accessible by just downloading it. Which is always how I did it
That’s some Apple level excuse
Piracy is a service problem, Nintendo.
“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” – Gabe Newell
Yeah, shut up Nintendo
There’s nothing innovative about locking software behind decades old hardware. I don’t know why Nintendo even bothered with this explanation when everyone reading it knows it’s BS.
Wouldn’t even need to pirate if they actually made their old games available.
A canned corporate response without much evidence
that is 100% BS.
Lol “stifles innovation.” They’d also try telling you second-hand sales were illegal if they could get away with it.
sTiFlEs iNnOvAtIoN
Stifles the innovation of being able to scam you out of money for shitty ports that run at low frames and full of glitches somehow, remasters, and selling you a subscriptions for “classics” with an annoying border you have no option to turn off.
So it’s Emulation’s fault that Pokémon is regressing in terms of quality each and every new entry? So it’s emulation’s fault that Mario Strikers & Golf were entirely bare-bones? So it’s emulation’s fault that Animal Crossing New Horizons released with a fraction of the items & featured we’ve seen in the past? So it’s emulation’s fault that Nintendo isn’t offering most of their own darn games for sale?
I mean, Dolphin did this to themselves. For sure. But come on…
From a legal standpoint, I think they’re within their rights, however from a moral standpoint, it’s just so trite.
They want to keep people from playing a library of games so they can attempt to resell them to people who already own them later – when in reality out of that whole library, I’d be shocked if even 10 percent of them saw re-releases.
Really it’s just hurting preservation efforts in the long run.
I will not buy digital copies of my old games for a third time. It’s just not happening.
The designers, composers and developers of old games already got paid for their work. Nintendo is making money of that work even decades later. Copyright law really is some bullshit. I believe after 10 to 20 years you made your profits. After that everything should already be public domain.
“Nintendo, we want to play your old games! They’re a cherished part of video game history…but finding a copy of them for a reasonable price is basically impossible.”
“Oh cool. We’re glad you love our old games and enjoy playing them”
“Where are they?”
“You just have to buy the old console and the disk/cartridge and then you can play it”
“But that would cost me hundreds of dollars and you’d make no money off of it.”
“That’s right”
“You can make money by releasing it on modern hardware”
“I don’t want to”
“I don’t want to pay $200 to play Paper Mario 2…release it on Switch and I’ll gladly pay you”
“No”
“Okay, fine…I’m going to emulate it.”
“We’ll sue”
“But you’re not losing any money since you’re not selling the game”
“Enjoy paying $35 million, scumbag. At least we didn’t send the Pinkertons…but you might not be so lucky next time”
You know what sTiFLeS iNnOvAtiOn?
Dropping a legal guillotine on any given programmer/developer who tries to make a game based off a property that’s been completely ignored for 10+ years. *”You love our old game so much you’ve toiled away hours upon hours of your finite time to painstakingly carry on the franchise we’ve left to rot? Die in a fire – legally.”*
Fuck corporate greed and the laws that encourage it.
So Nintendo sent a response to Kotaku, a news website that they blacklisted?
Fuck Nintendo. They make really good games but their greed has no end.
It “stifles Innovation” is the same bullshit Apple tried to use when the EU forced all electronic devices to use USB-C.
Because their USB 2 based lightning port is so much better 😂
Yeah, locking games behind old hardware that most people can’t get anymore surely is innovative Nintendo.
I’m pretty sure either the Switch or Pokemon Scarlet/Violet were stifling innovation but potatoes tomatoes
I don’t see how that’s stifling innovation because Nintendo sucks at keeping these old games alive. What innovative approaches do they employ to keep these games alive?
Number 1, they shut down the shops. Number 2, they re-release the old games with a little extra content if we’re lucky and charge $40-$60 for them. Or number 3, they hide the games behind a paywall subscription.
There’s nothing original or innovative there. I think the translation of the pr speech here is, “emulation allows people to not pay us money for our old games that we ignore, or make cash grabs of, or are trying to build a comfy revenue stream with.”
At one point they had it right with the virtual consoles , $5 for a NES game for example was good and you could just buy the games you want on your Wii. Now Nintendo seems to be actively pushing people to emulate, they know it and so they aim to shut easy, err “illegal” emulators down.
What is the point? Nintendo is really acting like a child here. If you take down the official avenues to get an emulator it will just be distributed unofficially. If you somehow manage to remove it from the Internet someone will make a new one. I don’t have a GameCube anymore, let me play the game I like.
Oh fuck off Nintendo.
Except it literally does the opposite. If anything Nintendo should open source old games to be ported by the community. They’d get far more accomplished by working with fans instead of fighting us.
They want to claim “stifles-innovation” then I’m going to argue Emulators encourage innovation.
Wide screen SNES games, wide screen 64/GC games, texture mods, higher frame rates, model replacements, rewind, fast forward, save states.. all things Emulators have innovated on and that Nintendo refuses to acknowledge and just pump out the same version (or some cases a worst version) of their older games.
They’re talking out of their ass with this, they want to do the least amount of work possible while the emulation community shows them how it’s actually done.
jesus fuck, just say youre protecting copyrights, what the fuck is this excuse? how does an emulator stifle innovation? how does running games made in the past stifle the fucking future? why is japan always so fucking weird about shit like this?
Nintenshit can fuck off.
Nintendo hates their fans.
That last sentence is hilarious considering Nintendo got it’s start in video games by cloning Pong, Space Invaders and Sega’s Duck Hunt
Innovation? How about add fucking cloud saves to pokemon games. If they existed when my GameStop certified pre-owned switch lite died I wouldn’t have fucking lost all my pokemon scarlet and sword data with all the event pokemon and my friend’s shiny Charizard. Stop fucking worrying about drm, copyright, and your own fucking ego and do things to make stuff for the better instead of taking away all the emulators that probably could have saved my ass and my pokemon saves a couple of weeks ago
Lmao suck my fuckin dick. I’m gonna emulate more Nintendo games just because I can now.
How though?
Innovation in the science of trying to make fans pay for the exact same game over and over again.
I would counter that by saying that Nintendo’s approach stifles game preservation and, without emulation, many games will eventually just disappear.
But I guess that’s Nintendo’s ultimate aim – after all, if old games can’t easily be played then people have to buy new games …….
This is the most Nintendo response that Nintendo has ever made.
It stifles their store income. They can no longer individually dole out 30 year old games one at a time for $5 a month if you have this. Their NES “emulator” that’s on Switch is a joke. 20 games out of hundreds.
I’ve seen more innovation in the emulation and modding scenes over the last year than I’ve seen from Nintendo in the last decade, and that’s coming from a diehard Nintendo fanboy. Emulators have given rise to so much innovation in the amateur coding scene it’s incredible, and this response from Nintendo is just so obviously untrue it’s almost laughable. Almost.