Dolphin emulator's Steam launch blocked by Nintendo DMCA notice to Valve

midian182

midian182

Posts: 8,777   +110
Staff member
WTF?! If you're one of the people looking forward to seeing the GameCube and Wii emulator Dolphin come to Steam, here's some bad news: Nintendo has sent a DMCA takedown notice to Valve, instructing the company to block Dolphin's release.

It was back in March when we heard that the open-source Dolphin, which after its release in 2003 become the first emulator that could successfully run commercial GameCube games, would be coming to Steam.

But Nintendo didn't get its reputation as one of the most litigious companies in the world for nothing. While it's known about Dolphin since the software launched, it seems the emulator's addition to Steam was a step too far.

In a post earlier today, the Dolphin team wrote that the emulator's Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. Nintendo issued a cease and desist to Valve, citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page; DMCA notices are sent to service providers rather than the alleged offenders.

Not any more

Nintendo's letter (via PC Gamer) states that the Dolphin emulator violates Nintendo's intellectual property rights, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)'s Anti-Circumvention and AntiTrafficking provisions. As such, Valve has an obligation to remove Dolphin from the Steam store, writes Nintendo.

"The Dolphin emulator operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo's authorization and decrypting the ROMs at or immediately before runtime. Thus, use of the Dolphin emulator unlawfully 'circumvent[s] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under' the Copyright Act," states the DMCA letter.

Before it was removed, the Dolphin Steam page noted that the emulator does not come with games and requires that a user own an original copy of any game they emulate.

Retro emulator fans will be disappointed by the takedown as the free Steam release promised support for 4K displays, modern controllers, and netplay. The good news is that you can download the Dolphin emulator freely and safely from TS downloads.

The Dolphin team say they are currently investigating their options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future. They could file a counterclaim that would potentially allow Dolphin's return to Steam if Nintendo didn't sue, but the Japanese company most probably would.

A few weeks ago, Dbrand goaded Nintendo with a secret message in its Zelda-clone decals that read, "Go f*ck yourself lawyers." Surprisingly, there hasn't been any response from Nintendo to the Clone of the Kingdom set, which has a headline description that reads, "The Power of Plagiarism."

Nintendo's love of legal action is well documented. It has, among other things, sued ROM site owners, killed a Super Mario 64 PC port, sent a DMCA takedown for game creation tool 'Pokemon Essentials,' and sued TikTok/Twitch star Pokeprincxss. And let's not forget how it wanted to send a message with the lengthy sentence of hacker Gary Bower, who was recently released from prison early.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98855-dolphin-emulator-steam-launch-blocked-nintendo-dmca-notice.html

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m4a4

m4a4

Posts: 3,320   +4,524
TechSpot Elite
Someone with money needs to take Nintendo to court over this. That's the only reason why they still do it; they can get away with bullying because no one wants to fight it.

Then, once precedence is set, things will be a lot nicer for consumers and the like...
 
Z

ZackL04

Posts: 918   +714
m4a4 said:
Someone with money needs to take Nintendo to court over this. That's the only reason why they still do it; they can get away with bullying because no one wants to fight it.

Then, once precedence is set, things will be a lot nicer for consumers and the like...
Click to expand...

A precedence for piracy? I doubt it
 
J

J spot

Posts: 240   +161
The article is lacking, because the Dolphin Emulator does have copyrighted code (The cryptographic keys).


Once they fix that, then they can add the emulator back to Steam. (It's the reason PlayStation emulators cannot contain the bios files. Unless it's a custom one.)

I remember a few years ago, after the Nintendo Gigaleaks, I was excited about the future of the Dolphin emulator, but the Dolphin team said... I found it.

"...the developers of Dolphin, a Game Cube and Wii emulator, stated that using any of the leaked source code would lead to the Dolphin project's immediate shutdown."

That's from the actual Dolphin developers.

They can not even glance at it and then continue working on the emulator. So imagine using actual copyrighted code from Nintendo.

They only took it down on Steam, and not other places like GitHub and TechSpot. My guess it's because it actually helps the competition against the Switch.
 
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3

3volv3d

Posts: 506   +323
ZackL04 said:
A precedence for piracy? I doubt it
Click to expand...

No it's not about piracy per say. It's a bit like Netflix for all devices. They sell you a console, and games. They give that console a life expectancy. They purposely avoid backwards compatibility because, new games make their bread and butter. But you get shafted when you upgrade you lose some great games.

Now I know going back to nostalgia usually is brief and with a oh yeah we have moved on realisation.
But they could allow the emulator, and just sell their roms, maybe with some lovely Nintendo DRM. They make money while dolphin maintains the emulator for them like they have done, it would be better than suing, so everyone says, oh look Nintendo are still money grabbing a holes. They would be oh look theres Nintendo being money grabbing A holes, but I guess I can play these on that Emu on my pc.

Besides it should be law that after 50 years when old crap is just that, films tv music radio, it should all be free for people to find on the net anyway, a big encylopedia of our past in digital form. The History Channels. I gotta stop smokin weed
 
amghwk

amghwk

Posts: 1,339   +1,377
Actually, you don't need Steam to use Dolphin. Dolphin is available for Windows and Linux as standalone program.

People should stop depending on Steam to do everything for them.

Nintendo's aggressive and ruthless policy is making more people pirate their games.
 
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Z

ZackL04

Posts: 918   +714
m4a4 said:
If you own the copy and rip it yourself, it is legal to emulate. As much as these billion dollar companies would like you to think otherwise... 🤦‍♂️
Click to expand...
I know this
But the percent of people that rip their games let alone still have a cd rom drive is likely less than 5% of the people that want Dolphin on Steam

Dolphin is like a 10+yr old program…and available everywhere but Steam
 
Z

ZackL04

Posts: 918   +714
3volv3d said:
No it's not about piracy per say. It's a bit like Netflix for all devices. They sell you a console, and games. They give that console a life expectancy. They purposely avoid backwards compatibility because, new games make their bread and butter. But you get shafted when you upgrade you lose some great games.

Now I know going back to nostalgia usually is brief and with a oh yeah we have moved on realisation.
But they could allow the emulator, and just sell their roms, maybe with some lovely Nintendo DRM. They make money while dolphin maintains the emulator for them like they have done, it would be better than suing, so everyone says, oh look Nintendo are still money grabbing a holes. They would be oh look theres Nintendo being money grabbing A holes, but I guess I can play these on that Emu on my pc.

Besides it should be law that after 50 years when old crap is just that, films tv music radio, it should all be free for people to find on the net anyway, a big encylopedia of our past in digital form. The History Channels. I gotta stop smokin weed
Click to expand...
Then dont sell ur old consoles, or re-buy them again as an enthusiast as myself has done (they will NEVER drop in value, you are basically buying a mildly appreciating asset like silver, especially anything Nintendo).

They do this to skirt ease of piracy, plain and simple. Dolphin has been around for like 10 years. To put it on steam makes it readily available for lazy pirates, aka the majority of what would be those new users. Once its fixed and launched on steam, just wait, reddit will be flooded with “where do I find good roms?” threads
 
B

bviktor

Posts: 1,268   +1,840
Who didn't see this coming? Seriously, Nintendo is NOTORIOUS for this, ever since the original NES. They never changed. Why does anyone still touch anything from them is beyond me. They DMCA even YouTube reviews if they don't like them.
 
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m4a4

m4a4

Posts: 3,320   +4,524
TechSpot Elite
ZackL04 said:
I know this
But the percent of people that rip their games let alone still have a cd rom drive is likely less than 5% of the people that want Dolphin on Steam

Dolphin is like a 10+yr old program…and available everywhere but Steam
Click to expand...
Doesn't matter what it could be used for (considering it is widely available online, and it doesn't come with any pirated games). Windows could be used for piracy. Any browser could be used for piracy.
It doesn't give Nintendo the right to bully around. Period.
 
m4a4

m4a4

Posts: 3,320   +4,524
TechSpot Elite
amghwk said:
Actually, you don't need Steam to use Dolphin. Dolphin is available for Windows and Linux as standalone program.

People should stop depending on Steam to do everything for them.
Click to expand...
Or, those of us who don't want to deal with managing saves can let Steam do cloud saves. That sounds pretty darn convenient, if that's ok with you.
 
Z

ZackL04

Posts: 918   +714
m4a4 said:
Doesn't matter what it could be used for (considering it is widely available online, and it doesn't come with any pirated games). Windows could be used for piracy. Any browser could be used for piracy.
It doesn't give Nintendo the right to bully around. Period.
Click to expand...
It does matter. Same idea is applied to any law, or rule in real life, but in this case, the majority (not minority) is ruining it for the rest. At least in the case if a steam release. Nintendo knows what they are doing. And they know what the MASS majority of Dolphin users are doing as well.

Dont pretend its not primarily used to pirate gamecube and wii games.

Steam is a massive platform, and if dolphin has their keys they have every right to shut them down. To be honest, knowing they have these keys leads me to believe they should come after Dolphin in general
 
magisys

magisys

Posts: 7   +4
Nintendo can't blame anyone to emulate their abandonware, that are binded to console they don't sell anymore like the Wii U. If I want to play Xenoblade Chronicles X physical copy, today I can only emulate it or find an used Wii U. In both case Nintendo doesn't earn anything because I can't buy from them the game or the console.
 
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