Nintendo won't let you read this Super Mario 64 guidebook from 1996

[mongeese]

Facepalm: A few weeks ago, a Nintendo fan at Comfort Food Video Games uploaded a high-quality scan of the Super Mario 64 Complete Clear Guide, an officially-licensed guidebook released in Japan in 1996. It was super cool since copies of the book can cost hundreds on eBay.

Besides containing tips and tricks to completing the game's notoriously difficult levels, it also has trivia about its development process and interviews with the creators. Also inside the guide are photos of incredible dioramas of the game's maps. It was the first Super Mario game with 3D graphics, and Nintendo was worried that children would get lost within the game, so it created the dioramas to act as maps for the levels.

The guide is a small, unique piece of Nintendo history, and lots of fans were excited to read it for the first time. Then, heartbreak. The Internet Archive, which was hosting the scans, received a copyright infringement notice from Nintendo of America's lawyers, so it took the guide down.

"Frankly, I'd love to challenge the legitimacy of that and how Nintendo of America would have anything to do with a Nintendo of Japan licensed Gem Books guide from 1996, but I can't really fight the Nintendo legal team here," CFVG said to Kotaku. "It's incredibly disappointing."

"I'm a rookie to the video game preservation scene but I can't think of anything more depressing than how it's a bunch of hardworking people spending their free time and money painstakingly archiving and preserving history while major corporations like Nintendo are doing nothing to help. In fact they're actively hindering the cause."

Nintendo has made it a trend to take down preservation projects. It's a bit more reasonable when they shut down a storefront selling classic Nintendo ROMs or even distributing them freely. But this was a book that's been out of print for two decades, and no one was making money from it.

Fortunately, CFVG has shared the guide's file around, so if you want it, search it up, and you'll probably be able to download it from somewhere. For now, enjoy a couple more screenshots.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/93942-nintendo-wont-you-read-super-mario-64-guidebook.html

 

[Squid Surprise]

What’s with the “because it’s mean, basically” under the headline?
That implies that the guidebook is mean... yet... it isn’t... or at least the article makes no mention of it....

I think the author might be implying NINTENDO is mean.... maybe write what you mean?

 

[scavengerspc]

I'm all for protecting one's own Intellectual properties, I have a few myself relating to my business. But Nintendo just consistently jumps over the line between legal protection and just being complete pricks.

 

[mgilbert]

Ethics, and respect for one's customers matter, which is why I don't do business with Nintendo, Apple, Nvidia, or Amazon.

 

[Puiu]

Japanese companies have been on a rampage lately with stuff like this.

 

[Dimitriid]

Ethics, and respect for one's customers matter, which is why I don't do business with Nintendo, Apple, Nvidia, or Amazon.

That's not nearly enough, Nintendo is a great example of why Copyright Law needs to be abolished worldwide: It serves no purpose other than to destroy culture and art.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Japanese companies have been on a rampage lately with stuff like this.

At least it's not the same sort of rampage from 80 years ago.

 

[Hexic]

At least it's not the same sort of rampage from 80 years ago.

Eyyyyo.

 

[ZedRM]

I'm all for protecting one's own Intellectual properties, I have a few myself relating to my business. But Nintendo just consistently jumps over the line between legal protection and just being complete pricks.

For once we agree on something. Nintendo is continuing their very Stalin-ish legal choices.

Come on Nintendo, grow up and learn to protect what needs protecting. Harassing an archive website who's purpose is to preserve history and things that need preserving is just low-life selfishness. It makes you all look like overgrown apes dragging your knuckles.... wait...

 

[yannus]

Ethics, and respect for one's customers matter, which is why I don't do business with Nintendo, Apple, Nvidia, or Amazon.

And Google, and Microsoft and Unilever and Johnson & Johnson and Sony and Huawei and Samsung and Tesla and Disney and Coca-Cola and all evil corporations which first shareholders are Blackrock and Vanguard which are mega ultra evil. BTW you can play the game in Yahoo finance to check the two first shareholders of almost every corporation and you'll understand who's ruling this world.

 

[amghwk]

Nintendo's over-the-board mentality makes me want to download this guide, even if it's in Japanese.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

That's not nearly enough, Nintendo is a great example of why Copyright Law needs to be abolished worldwide: It serves no purpose other than to destroy culture and art.

I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of small artists that work tirelessly to keep their work from being shamelessly copy pasted everywhere would agree with you.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

You know Nintendo can easily turn this around. All they’d have to do is sell the book again and they’d both make money and give an obvious reason to people why they’re enforcing the copyright law. They could even sell it in English for the first time since people clearly want to read it.

 

[ypsylon]

From what I know books IP rights hold for 70 years. After that time title becomes PD unless original right holder extends that period. So in this particular sense Nintendo has the legal right to take it down.

On the other side, more important because that's rational and decent thing to do. They should be thrilled that people give free time to preserve things for posterity. They do it for free and they pay for infrastructure to remain free.

If Nintendo is so paranoid about gaming booklet then let them hide everything, to the point nobody will know that Nintendo ever existed. How about that for legacy? Works for me. Never bought single thing from them and never will. I hope people will download this in millions and millions and if by some miracle Nintendo decides to sell it once again, nobody will buy it.

I know that stating the obvious doesn't help much, but you have to be completely devoid of brain activity, morals and general humanity to be a corporate drone, from the bottom of the pile and all the way up to CEO office. Which Nintendo proves time and time again.

 

[BadThad]

And Google, and Microsoft and Unilever and Johnson & Johnson and Sony and Huawei and Samsung and Tesla and Disney and Coca-Cola and all evil corporations which first shareholders are Blackrock and Vanguard which are mega ultra evil. BTW you can play the game in Yahoo finance to check the two first shareholders of almost every corporation and you'll understand who's ruling this world.

"Evil corporations"? These evil corporations provide people with products we ALL (including you) want, need and desire. They also employ millions of people directly and indirectly. I don't see the evil in that! If you want to villainize a company, go after the management that makes the decisions - it's NOT the company, it's the *****s running it at the top.

 

[Phaetos]

Ethics, and respect for one's customers matter, which is why I don't do business with Nintendo, Apple, Nvidia, or Amazon.

So you have a Playstation, an Android phone, an AMD GPU and you shop with Newegg? All of which have also had their share of customer facing issues. You might just want to get off the Internet.

 

[Phaetos]

At least it's not the same sort of rampage from 80 years ago.

No, Putin is attempting to fill that slot.

 

[Phaetos]

And Google, and Microsoft and Unilever and Johnson & Johnson and Sony and Huawei and Samsung and Tesla and Disney and Coca-Cola and all evil corporations which first shareholders are Blackrock and Vanguard which are mega ultra evil. BTW you can play the game in Yahoo finance to check the two first shareholders of almost every corporation and you'll understand who's ruling this world.

Interesting, I've never used yahoo in the last 20yrs, I'll have to see if I can find where that is available.

 

[Phaetos]

"Evil corporations"? These evil corporations provide people with products we ALL (including you) want, need and desire. They also employ millions of people directly and indirectly. I don't see the evil in that! If you want to villainize a company, go after the management that makes the decisions - it's NOT the company, it's the *****s running it at the top.

And it's their decisions that are showcased as the COMPANY decision. The names of the corporations are tied directly to what the public sees. The NAME of the company/corporation can literally do nothing, it's a name, a pronoun. That name is run by people. I agree, the public needs to dis-associate the NAME with the people running it, but that won't happen because 90% of the world is incapable of critical thinking.

 

[mgilbert]

So you have a Playstation, an Android phone, an AMD GPU and you shop with Newegg? All of which have also had their share of customer facing issues. You might just want to get off the Internet

It's a matter of choosing among the lesser of the evils, and since it's my money, I get to choose. No, I don't have a Playstation or X-Box. My CPU is AMD - it's a better value that what Intel has to offer, and I don't have to change motherboards every time I upgrade. My GPU is AMD, as I consider Nvidia greedy, and a much less customer friendly choice. My phone is Android - I despise Apple with every fiber of my being. And most of my electronics come from Best Buy and Micro Center. Both companies have always given me excellent service, often bending rules to accommodate me - try that with Amazon. And no, I don't do business with NewEgg. I prefer smaller vendors when I am forced to buy online - usually B&H. I get personalized service from them as well.

 

[Red34jfp]

I'm surprised that you still haven't received a take down request from Nintendo for those screenshots, I thought fair use was another word for piracy in Nintendo's books.

 

[Aaron Fox]

These evil corporations provide people with products we ALL (including you) want, need and desire.

Smeagol likes shiny beads.

 

[Aaron Fox]

I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of small artists that work tirelessly to keep their work from being shamelessly copy pasted everywhere would agree with you.

Copyright law is designed to protect corporate-driven IP serfdom. If it were about the little people it would have a short term. Analysis has demonstrated that the optimal length is only around 7 years — not 200. The original American law was to be something like 14 years. Not 100+.

Copyright as it exists today prevents individual artists from creating. It enables corporations to steal art and hide behind gag orders. All art is built upon prior art so this insanely long copyright length prevents, vastly more than it enables — when it comes to individual artists' creative contributions to culture.

 

[amghwk]

I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of small artists that work tirelessly to keep their work from being shamelessly copy pasted everywhere would agree with you.

No.

1. The "thousands of artists" already got paid by Nintendo for this work the first time around.

2. No. They don't get royalty for each guide sold continuously. What's paid to them to do the job is done the first time.

3. The artists themselves wouldn't mind their work is being shared after more than 2 decades now.

4. It's the aggressive and arrogant Nintendo's policy is that is being a prick now.

5. There are so many other companies that are more understanding of their IPs and some of them release for free.

But Nintendo has an iron grip and a ruthless policy and will even sue a homeless pauper if given the chance.

 

[tellmewhy]

The legal reason of the "fair use" rule existence is because the legal good of the personality (to which free expression belongs) has a higher priority than the legal good of the property (to which the copyright belongs).

From the other side Japan does not have enough land for agriculture and relies on food imports, so that's why they are being a bit nervous about copyright, it does not mean that the Japaneses are obsessive or anything like that. Just if they do not have enough exports they will not be able to buy food for the population and many of the products they export are intangible so they rely heavily on copyright.

But a strict implementation of the copyright rule means that nobody can use anything that is on a fixed format and it isn't on public domain or it isn't they original work or they don’t have permission of the original author.

But in a really strict environment which protects 100% the copyrighted work then every derivative work can’t be original anymore.

And of course there will be photos of mushrooms, turtles, cute guys with hat and mustaches etc before the super mario franchise and by that way the franchise could not be in a strict way an original work anymore because it’s a derivative work from other copyrighted works.

So without true 100% originality it will not be able to have and 100% copyright protection.