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INTEREST: Dolphin Emulator's Steam Release Indefinitely Postponed After Nintendo's DMCA Notice




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LinkTSwordmaster



Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 561
Location: PA / USA
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 10:43 am Reply with quote
From what I can tell, this isn't the sort of thing that will allow Nintendo to go after every emulator out there, just ones that have that particular key or keys like it included with the app's download. Easiest way around this, if it's at all possible to do, is to pull that key out and have the user provide it manually somehow, not unlike how users are supposed to provide their own console's BIOS for PS1-era game consoles.

This is ultimately Nintendo attempting to puff itself up and look larger than it really is so as to scare Valve off, but the part where this becomes worrying is that other emulator developers may need to go back to decades-old programming and comb through older stuff to see if anything qualifying as a Nintendo-authored encryption key might have been left somewhere in the code.

Nintendo is fairly anti-consumer and anti-preservation so I'm hoping this ultimately is a loss for them/ makes them look foolish enough that future attempts at this sort of bullying isn't so quick to happen.
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Mune



Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 383
Location: Minnesota
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 10:53 am Reply with quote
Let's be clear about this. It runs Wii and GC games, consoles that stopped making and supporting games more than 10 years ago. Nintendo only loses money if people are using it on roms if it is for games available on the Switch or new physical only games from a retailer on another platform, not the secondary market.

With this said, I have used RetroArch on Steam to emulate Nintendo games, but each has been multiplayer in some sense. Games that only have local co-op benefit greatly from this. I played with people hundreds of miles away. I already owned the physical games in which I emulated. Emulation replaced at least 1 player's gas and time to travel to someone else's home.

If Nintendo really cared about curbing this use, give players an alternative. Put both old games and multiplayer support in playing an internet-based couch co-op experience at our convenience. Video game preservationists have been touting about bringing games like Super Mario RPG to the SNES app on the Switch. They could even team up with developers of randomizers to give old games a fresh experience. Let's be clear, emulators are tools that do much more than the original hardware could.
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Dark Mac



Joined: 17 May 2008
Posts: 323
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 12:26 pm Reply with quote
It's a shame we're getting this out of date news days after it was proved false. Nintendo never sent a DMCA. Valve asked Nintendo if it was okay to have Dolphin on Steam, and Nintendo said they didn't want it there. No legal measures were taken.

Summary from a Dolphin dev: https://mastodon.delroth.net/@delroth/110440301402516214
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Sheriru



Joined: 27 May 2016
Posts: 133
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 2:48 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
"Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers."


Protecting them so hard, so nobody will never ever play them, bc who even has those 2 Consoles with the Games at Home or who would ever pay money for that in todays times. But sure, protect it or whatever.

I bet everything, if one ask those Developers, they would be ok with People wanting to play their Games, when there is no Hardware to play on but an Emulator.

Nintendo is such an annyoing Company, holy hell
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Chris Handsome



Joined: 07 Sep 2010
Posts: 320
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 3:11 pm Reply with quote
Just download the stand alone emulator from the official site, why bother running it through Steam? Same with Retroarch.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14893
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 7:08 pm Reply with quote
Still working on Xbox Dev Mode

Probably because, according to a recent Dolphin insider, it's not actually "DMCA"-ed:

https://mastodon.delroth.net/@delroth/110440301402516214

Quote:
You may have seen or heard the news about Dolphin / Valve / Nintendo from a few hours ago.

Unfortunately pretty much everyone has been getting the legal details wrong, incl. Dolphin themselves on their blog (now fixed).

Disclaimer: I'm not officially involved with Dolphin anymore. I was the treasurer for the foundation backing the project for a while (technically still am for a month), but I've stepped down from the project a month or so ago. So, still plenty of context, but not much at stake for me.

The error that many have done in their reporting is to say this was a "DMCA takedown notice" or "DMCA notice" or (ugh) "DMCA". This was none of these things.

In this case, none of this [DMCA sect. 512(c)] process was followed. 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.

This is very much *not* a section 512(c) takedown! Just standard legal removals / C&D between two companies.

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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alabamabeachmouse



Joined: 30 May 2023
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Tue May 30, 2023 10:41 pm Reply with quote
Chris Handsome wrote:
Just download the stand alone emulator from the official site, why bother running it through Steam? Same with Retroarch.


Agreed. Some people REALLY want everything on Steam, though
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AsleepBySunset



Joined: 07 Sep 2022
Posts: 244
PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2023 2:46 am Reply with quote
alabamabeachmouse wrote:
Chris Handsome wrote:
Just download the stand alone emulator from the official site, why bother running it through Steam? Same with Retroarch.


Agreed. Some people REALLY want everything on Steam, though


My understanding is if you get your software working on steam, users can run that program on linux easily.
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FeelMyBlade



Joined: 11 Aug 2012
Posts: 155
PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2023 3:30 am Reply with quote
Sheriru wrote:
Protecting them so hard, so nobody will never ever play them, bc who even has those 2 Consoles with the Games at Home or who would ever pay money for that in todays times. But sure, protect it or whatever.


I somehow doubt people are using Dolphin, Yuzu, and other emulators to preserve old media and not just emulate modern titles like Tears of the Kingdom or Smash Bros. Melee.

I'm all for piracy in general but you act like the Wii wasn't a huge selling console and most people who wanted it don't already have one or it's some huge hurdle to get one. All the video games in danger of being lost to time are the old obscure stuff, not modern games. First party Nintendo titles are not in any danger of being lost to time. It's the third party games from companies that no longer exist and will never pop up on a virtual console service or big company compilation from Namco or Sega. Let's not pretend people are emulating those games 9 times out of 10.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6358
PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2023 7:10 am Reply with quote
FeelMyBlade wrote:
All the video games in danger of being lost to time are the old obscure stuff, not modern games.


CastleVania & Contra Rebirth are old & obscure and weren’t modern?

FeelMyBlade wrote:
First party Nintendo titles are not in any danger of being lost to time.


Hmmm so we can expect at some point for Nintendo to drop the Windwaker Remaster on the Switch or a future console?

Or games that were never rereleased like Fire Emblem Path Of Radiance?
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ranran-001



Joined: 25 Oct 2018
Posts: 545
PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2023 8:11 am Reply with quote
AsleepBySunset wrote:
alabamabeachmouse wrote:
Chris Handsome wrote:
Just download the stand alone emulator from the official site, why bother running it through Steam? Same with Retroarch.


Agreed. Some people REALLY want everything on Steam, though


My understanding is if you get your software working on steam, users can run that program on linux easily.


Dolphin already runs natively on linux, and there is a linux build that works with Steam Deck. Having it available as program from the Steam store gives it access to cloud saves.
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Rosiero



Joined: 05 Jun 2013
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Wed May 31, 2023 10:39 pm Reply with quote
FeelMyBlade wrote:
Sheriru wrote:
Protecting them so hard, so nobody will never ever play them, bc who even has those 2 Consoles with the Games at Home or who would ever pay money for that in todays times. But sure, protect it or whatever.


I somehow doubt people are using Dolphin, Yuzu, and other emulators to preserve old media and not just emulate modern titles like Tears of the Kingdom or Smash Bros. Melee.

I'm all for piracy in general but you act like the Wii wasn't a huge selling console and most people who wanted it don't already have one or it's some huge hurdle to get one. All the video games in danger of being lost to time are the old obscure stuff, not modern games. First party Nintendo titles are not in any danger of being lost to time. It's the third party games from companies that no longer exist and will never pop up on a virtual console service or big company compilation from Namco or Sega. Let's not pretend people are emulating those games 9 times out of 10.


There is a rather wide gulf between Nintendo's newest release (ToTK) and a game that's over twenty years old and has never been re-released (SSBM).
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