Update 29/05: According to Pierre Bourdon on Mastodon, who was Dolphin's treasurer for the foundation backing the project (Bourdon is stepping down), Valve actually initiated the conversation to check in with Nintendo on this. So this is not a DMCA takedown request but Nintendo said it would violate the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions, so Valve took it down. So there's technically nothing for Dolphin to counter here.
Kotaku also got a statement from Nintendo on this:
“Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers,” a spokesperson for Nintendo told Kotaku in an email. “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.”
The article title was updated to better reflect the situation.
Original article below for context:
Back in March the plan was announced for the Wii and GameCube emulator Dolphin to release on Steam, along with some useful Steam features but now that seems unlikely to happen.
The Dolphin team has now announced that their Steam page was taken down, as Nintendo sent a cease and desist notice to Valve about it. Here's the statement they released:
It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.
We appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Such a shame.
Why now though? Dolphin has been around since 2003 for GameCube, adding basic Wii support in 2007, so Dolphin was there during the time the Wii was still being fully supported. Nintendo also only went after the Steam page, not the project as a whole as it can still be found on GitHub and official site. According to a comment from the Citra developer on Reddit, it's due to Dolphin including decryption keys with the project.
Really, it's not going to do Nintendo much good, it's put Dolphin all over the news and even more people will now know about it and end up using it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I suspect they did this but not all the other things one might expect bunches of lawyers to do if they wanted something dead, simply because DMCA takedown requests are amazingly easy, require zero standard of proof, and as I understand it legally have to be complied with even if there's nothing to them. Going after someone legally for real costs money and can easily go wrong; just sending a DMCA takedown, you can get an intern to do it before their coffee break and there are no repercussions, so why not?
2 Likes, Who?
Joystick drift is actually common across the industry. I know a number of Sony's more expensive controllers have suffered from it, but for whatever reason, they don't get hammered for it like Nintendo. And to be fair, Nintendo continues to offer a free Joy Con repair service, at least here in the US, so while they may not have offered the groveling apology that some people seem to want, they have implemented what I think is a reasonable remedy.Nintendo is just protecting themselves. I've never had a problem with that. They're still a great company.No they are not. They are a soulless corporation who'd rather see games disappear forever than preserved, ultimately. They advocate for the worst kinds of DRM AND knowingly sell defective hardware to people (joycon analog drift ring a bell?) without fixing it for half a decade and counting.
As far as game availability, they are really no better or worse than the majority of other publishers and developers in the industry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"B-but these other companies are bad too"
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
7 Likes, Who?
" it's due to Dolphin including decryption keys with the project."
omg i should have read the article prior to comenting...
omg i should have read the article prior to comenting...
1 Likes, Who?
Joystick drift is actually common across the industry. I know a number of Sony's more expensive controllers have suffered from it, but for whatever reason, they don't get hammered for it like Nintendo. And to be fair, Nintendo continues to offer a free Joy Con repair service, at least here in the US, so while they may not have offered the groveling apology that some people seem to want, they have implemented what I think is a reasonable remedy.
I had a joycon die on me. The switch was pretty new, maybe only a few months. They are very small and feel delicate. But, I went online, sent the affected joycon in for service and had a brand new one back in a few days. No waiting on the phone for support, no complex shipping (I did have to provide my own box), no super complex hoops to jump through to prove it wasn't working and it wasn't magically my fault. They just did it.
Quite frankly, that better customer service than what I experienced from Valve, Logitech, Asus, or Microsoft.
Ironically, #2 would firmly be Microsoft and only because I had to do it over the phone to resolve my issue, so I was on hold a lot.
It is a shame they DCMA'd the emulator though. Alot of their games are really good, I'd love to be able to play them on PC!
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Nonsense
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CyborgZeta May 27, 2023
I grew up with Nintendo starting with the N64. Back in the mid-2010's, during the Wii U's life, I suddenly found myself losing interest in them. To this day, I find it difficult to play most Nintendo games, with titles like Ocarina of Time being one of the few exceptions. That's a game I just can't bring myself to hate, as it was my favorite game ever for the longest time.
That said, I never bought a Switch, and never will. I'm very disappointed in Nintendo right now, and I have no regret over leaving them behind.
Additionally, there's one other thing I discovered as an adult, particularly after getting into emulation. I didn't get to really appreciate them back in their heyday, but now I see...that SEGA was better.
That said, I never bought a Switch, and never will. I'm very disappointed in Nintendo right now, and I have no regret over leaving them behind.
Additionally, there's one other thing I discovered as an adult, particularly after getting into emulation. I didn't get to really appreciate them back in their heyday, but now I see...that SEGA was better.
2 Likes, Who?
Apparently, Valve initiated the conversation... 
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Mountain Man May 27, 2023
"B-but these other companies are bad too"I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 27 May 2023 at 8:16 pm UTC
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Mountain Man May 27, 2023
Apparently, Valve initiated the conversation...That certainly puts a different spin on the story.
1 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje May 27, 2023
Nintendo is just protecting themselves. I've never had a problem with that. They're still a great company.They haven't been a great company since they blocked all competition from making games if they also wanted to be on the NES in the 80s. They more or less bukkied their way into success back then.
They are also one of the most aggressive companies about going after sites hosting their old crap. Also the most aggressive about reselling the same stuff over and over again, and not giving credit to the emulator writers when they use them in their own products.
3 Likes, Who?
Absolutely this. I used to be a big fan of Nintendo's, but they put me off of them after they took various series I'd formerly enjoyed in directions that I didn't like, moved over to having large of amounts of expensive pre-planned DLC for major releases, promoting adult-rated games in non-adult-rated games, moving from openly opt-in to sparsely-signposted opt-out telemetry, cutting basic features that were present for decades and then adding them back in via drip-feed free updates purely for social-media "buzz", and having loot-box mechanics in their promotional mobile games. It feels like they've been working hard to alienate long-time fans who liked them for *not* doing these things.
Yup, this is me. I went from having a collection of original games for every Nintendo console to date (all bought legally and, when possible, new) to not buying anything Nintendo related at all.
It's been years since I've last bought something from them and with how they are behaving lately, it seems some more years will pass for me to buy something from them again (if ever at all).
They are one of the worst (if not the worst) videogame companies ever.
3 Likes, Who?
Apparently, Valve initiated the conversation...That certainly puts a different spin on the story.
sounds like a troll to me, Valve cannot legally claim a DMCA if there where no DMCA.
1 Likes, Who?
It's not like it absolves Nintendo:Apparently, Valve initiated the conversation...That certainly puts a different spin on the story.
To the best of my understanding, this is what happened:
1. Valve legal contacted Nintendo of America to ask "hey, what do you think about Dolphin?"
2. Nintendo replied to Valve "we think it's bad and also that it violates the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions" (note: nothing about violating copyright itself). Also "please take it down".
3. Valve legal takes it down and forwards NoA's reply to the Dolphin Foundation contact address.
What I find more interesting is this additional context regarding the encryption key:
Now onto Nintendo's legal claims: nobody can tell for sure whether Dolphin is in the right, or whether Nintendo is in the right. Like all legal matters, there is a lot of space for interpretation.
Dolphin does distribute the Wii AES-128 Common Key which is used to encrypt Wii game discs. This isn't required in theory, the tools that dump game discs could just dump decrypted images, in fact that might be easier than dumping encrypted images (the decryption is done transparently by the Wii OS).
Whether that's allowed by exception clauses for interoperability, whether that's allowed by some kind of fair use clause, whether Nintendo's broken DRM actually counts as an effective copyright protection measure, etc. -> only a lawsuit could decide that. Your guess is probably as good or as bad as anyone else's.
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ElectricPrism May 27, 2023
I'm a little confused
https://reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/13teds1/nintendo_did_not_send_any_dmca_notice_to_valve/
https://reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/13teds1/nintendo_did_not_send_any_dmca_notice_to_valve/
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Mohandevir May 28, 2023
Dolphin doesn't even need to be on Steam, anyway. The team just needs to continue to optimize for the Steam Deck... For the rest, Emudeck got you covered.
Valve probably just wanted to play safe. I'm not really surprised by Nintendo's attitude, either; the Steam Deck is a better Wii.
Valve probably just wanted to play safe. I'm not really surprised by Nintendo's attitude, either; the Steam Deck is a better Wii.
1 Likes, Who?
"B-but these other companies are bad too"I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
Attacking game preservation is unethical. Selling hardware you know is defective is unethical. And those are just two very obvious examples.
5 Likes, Who?
Oh, come on, Mountain Man, they're a big corporation! That's like saying you're not convinced a politician is lying!"B-but these other companies are bad too"I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
5 Likes, Who?
There goes steamcloud support, now I have to manually backup my saves, I wish yuzu dolphin and etc puts google driver or other cloud services for save files.
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