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

[midian182]

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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[Burty117]

F*ck you Nintendo.

 

[DSirius]

"The good news is that you can download the Dolphin emulator freely and safely from TS downloads"
Ha, Ha, it seems that TS did not get a take down notice from Nintendo.
Epic roast

 

[Kashim]

Ha, Ha, it seems that TS did not get a take down notice from Nintendo.

.....yet

 

[m4a4]

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...

 

[ZackL04]

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...

A precedence for piracy? I doubt it

 

[J spot]

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.

 

[m4a4]

A precedence for piracy? I doubt it

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...

 

[3volv3d]

A precedence for piracy? I doubt it

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

 

[VaRmeNsI]

If you buy Nintendo you are part of the problem.

 

[amghwk]

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.

 

[ZackL04]

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...

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

 

[ZackL04]

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

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

 

[bviktor]

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.

 

[m4a4]

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

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]

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.

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.

 

[Julnor]

Are there any unsanctioned emulators on Steam other than this?

 

[ZackL04]

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.

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]

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.

 

[Lounds]

Nintendo are the worst. The best thing they could do I buy dolphin and then sell games on steam to run on dolphin emulator. Everyone's happy. Discs rot and games will eventually not be playable and lost forever with no way else to purchase or play them.

 

[Burty117]

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).

I bought the last generation of PS2 (Silver ultra thin) and the last generation of PS3 (the ultra thin with the top loading disk drive) in the hope they wouldn't break down.

PS3, completely dead, don't know if the PSU failed but it's dead, the PS2, still working fine, just doesn't output to HDMI and my AV receiver recently gave up the ghost which converted component to HDMI for me.

Here's the thing, Microsoft, they give you backwards compatibility on their latest consoles, so you can play original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games all on one console, perfect, games you purchased all those years ago, Microsoft are giving you a way to play them.

Sony / Nintendo though, absolutely no official way to play your old games. It's a decision made by them as well, the PS5 can easily run PS1 and PS2 games and I bet they could get PS3 games working as well.

Now I own my consoles and games on disk, if my console breaks, no way to buy a new one, no way to play on the latest console, the only option is to emulate.

Something else you're not acknowledging, Nintendo and Sony don't make any money by blocking emulation, you can only buy PS1/PS2/N64/GameCube/Wii games second hand, same with second hand consoles, Sony and Nintendo make no money on that. Emulation gives everyone a way to preserve and play these old games that Sony and Nintendo have deliberately buried into the history books.

If Sony / Nintendo were smart, they'd work alongside the developers of these Emulators to perfect it on their current consoles and sell the old games again on their own digital stores, they'd actually make money on that and gives everyone a way to officially play old games again. Of course, on the PlayStation at least, they should allow you to put your original disk in and play.

 

[ZackL04]

I bought the last generation of PS2 (Silver ultra thin) and the last generation of PS3 (the ultra thin with the top loading disk drive) in the hope they wouldn't break down.

PS3, completely dead, don't know if the PSU failed but it's dead, the PS2, still working fine, just doesn't output to HDMI and my AV receiver recently gave up the ghost which converted component to HDMI for me.

Here's the thing, Microsoft, they give you backwards compatibility on their latest consoles, so you can play original Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games all on one console, perfect, games you purchased all those years ago, Microsoft are giving you a way to play them.

Sony / Nintendo though, absolutely no official way to play your old games. It's a decision made by them as well, the PS5 can easily run PS1 and PS2 games and I bet they could get PS3 games working as well.

Now I own my consoles and games on disk, if my console breaks, no way to buy a new one, no way to play on the latest console, the only option is to emulate.

Something else you're not acknowledging, Nintendo and Sony don't make any money by blocking emulation, you can only buy PS1/PS2/N64/GameCube/Wii games second hand, same with second hand consoles, Sony and Nintendo make no money on that. Emulation gives everyone a way to preserve and play these old games that Sony and Nintendo have deliberately buried into the history books.

If Sony / Nintendo were smart, they'd work alongside the developers of these Emulators to perfect it on their current consoles and sell the old games again on their own digital stores, they'd actually make money on that and gives everyone a way to officially play old games again. Of course, on the PlayStation at least, they should allow you to put your original disk in and play.

I said buy Nintendo, nothing else. The Nintendo stuff is gold, all of it Gamecube and older.

Also, your wrong, the xbox only plays select games in backwards compatability and they sell them on their marketplace as well. AND both Sony and Nintendo sell their old games as digital copies. The PS3 and up have ps1 ans Ps2 games to purchase along with PSNow streaming service. Sony seems to care less about emulation, but Nintendo is all over it as they in the past had 3ds/wii/wiiu shops for selling classics. They are both capitalizing on re-selling the same old games over and over

 

[Burty117]

I said buy Nintendo, nothing else. The Nintendo stuff is gold, all of it Gamecube and older.

Let me quote your post again:

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).

"Don't sell your old consoles"...

Also, your wrong, the xbox only plays select games in backwards compatability and they sell them on their marketplace as well.

I haven't owned an Xbox since the Xbox 360 days, I just did a quick Google and found out I could play Timesplitters: Future Perfect on the Series X which is the first time in 11 years Microsoft has done something that makes me want to buy their console. So Apologies, I'm not that well-versed in in the Xbox world.

both Sony and Nintendo sell their old games as digital copies.

Sony's library isn't that great though and doesn't seem to grow, I'll use the example from above, I can't buy Timesplitters on PS5 for example.

The PS3 and up have ps1 ans Ps2 games to purchase along with PSNow streaming service. Sony seems to care less about emulation, but Nintendo is all over it as they in the past had 3ds/wii/wiiu shops for selling classics. They are both capitalizing on re-selling the same old games over and over

Has the same issue as above though, the library of PS1/2 games available for streaming isn't great however, I just realised Sony don't seem to hold a list anywhere, you have to buy Premium first and only once you can access the "library" you'll find out the game you want to play isn't there...

Anyway my point is, I bought loads of PS2 games, I want to play my PS2 games today but Sony don't sell the PS2 anymore or even let me re-buy the games digitally, So unless I can put my PS2 disk into the PS5 and play, I have no choice but to use Emulation.