[UPDATE] The entry on the Dolphin blog has been changed slightly to more accurately reflect the situation. While their original post yesterday said Valve had received a DMCA takedown notice from Nintendo, the revision now claims it is a cease & desist order citing the Anti-Circumvention provisions in the DMCA.

Pierre Bourdon, a former member of the Dolphin team, has claimed on Mastodon that the order originated with Valve. He reports that Valve reached out to Nintendo regarding Dolphin, and Nintendo issued the C&D in response. If this is the case, it would impact Dolphin's available options for recourse as Valve retains the right to remove listings from their storefront. It also means, however, that Nintendo is not pursuing legal action against the Dolphin team right now.

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[ORIGINAL STORY] Back in March, the team behind the Dolphin GameCube/Wii emulator announced that they would be bringing Dolphin to Steam sometime in the second quarter of 2023. However, the release seems to be indefinitely delayed after Valve received a DMCA notice from Nintendo. Posting on their blog today, the team announced that Steam had contacted them to let them know of the takedown notice and that the page will be down "until the matter is settled." The team is currently investigating their options and promise a more in-depth update as soon as possible.

PC Gamer claims to have reviewed the document, dated today, May 26. It reads, in part:

Because the Dolphin emulator violates Nintendo’s intellectual property rights, including but not limited to its rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s Anti-Circumvention and AntiTrafficking provisions, 17 U.S.C. § 1201, we provide this notice to you of your obligation to remove the offering of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam store.

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 a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under' the Copyright Act.

Nintendo is attacking the Dolphin Emulator under the DMCA's Anti-Circumvention provisions, citing the inclusion of the Wii's common key in Dolphin's source code. Nintendo argues that because the common key allows Dolphin to decrypt data, it allows users to illegally circumvent measures put in place to control access to works protected under the Copyright Act - in this case, GameCube and Wii games.

Dolphin is somewhat unique in distributing this key already built in to its source code, as most emulators require the end user to provide a key or BIOS on their own. Emulator frontend RetroArch has also been added to Steam but, contrary to Dolphin, hasn't been the target of DMCA attacks by Nintendo, likely because its builds and cores require external BIOS and key files not found within their source code.

As of now, it appears as if this only affects Dolphin Emulator's upcoming release on Steam. It is still available to download on the official website.

 

[megahog2012]

Nintendo doesn't go after Amazon & eBay for Emulator Boxes with their games pre-loaded on those devices same goes with the Fake NES & SNES Classic Editions........ Yet when it comes to Emulators & Homebrew Nintendo freak out about it.

That's because it would be wise to take out the emulators themselves instead of going after the boxes. It's like a Hydra... Cut one of it's heads off and another one grows in. So take their food away they would be left to die. Take the emulators away (or rather the makers OF said emulators), android boxes won't really sell well. (Unless streaming movies or using the interface similarly like a very weak computer is your thing.)

 

[SMNFXCN]

not sure why asking the user to provide keys is so hard. was bound to happen.
thought this was just nintendo trying to bully people again.
plus it doesn't matter if the user was asked to provide keys. keys are the same if they're floating around online or dumped from your console. not counting the console specific ones if there is

 

[Xzi]

That’s a slippery slope… If the courts were to hypothetically allow this instance to slide, it sets the precedent for some bad actors to compromise other companies and systems. “Ninty fucked up” isn’t a valid excuse to use their proprietary keys in your program. Doesn’t work that way, nor should it. This isn’t losing a $100 bill.

I disagree, blatant negligence on anybody's part is often a determining factor in legal cases. Granted, it's not like losing a $100 bill, because it's more like purposefully placing it on the ground and then lashing out violently when it isn't still there an hour later. Nintendo's hardware has always had more security holes than a slice of Swiss cheese after a drive-by shooting, and if they aren't willing to own up to their failures in that regard, they should absolutely have their asses handed to them in court.

It's not a slippery slope because there's a clear line between competence and negligence, and the only one of the big three consistently on the wrong side of that line is Ninty. They're using the legal system in place of basic software security simply because they don't want to invest a little more in it; while cheaping out on console hardware to boot.

 

[samcambolt270]

You literally can't dmca this. It's all original code, there's nothing copywritten. Not only is not a copyright violation (aka literally the only thing dmca is for and nothing else) emulators are also legal, as multiple court cases have already shown How does nintendo still not understand what copyright is.

 

[Vorde]

You literally can't dmca this. It's all original code, there's nothing copywritten. Not only is not a copyright violation (aka literally the only thing dmca is for and nothing else) emulators are also legal, as multiple court cases have already shown How does nintendo still not understand what copyright is.

They can DMCA this, especially now that it's well known that they have an encryption key stored in the source code.
This is something that could bring down the entire Dolphin team.

 

[samcambolt270]

They can DMCA this, especially now that it's well known that they have an encryption key stored in the source code.
This is something that could bring down the entire Dolphin team.

I was not aware of the key in the code, but even with that its not "especially now." It's "only just specifically now and for that specific reason only." Thats literally the only exclusive thing. Remove the key and they're in the clear.

 

[megahog2012]

Well, if memory serves me right they NEED that key to run the games! Perhaps another solution would be to add something to generate the key before loading the game. That way they aren't removing anything to degrade the emulation but could dodge potential lawsuits.

 

[samcambolt270]

Well, if memory serves me right they NEED that key to run the games! Perhaps another solution would be to add something to generate the key before loading the game. That way they aren't removing anything to degrade the emulation but could dodge potential lawsuits.

Needing the key doesn't matter, providing it does. Merely having the user provide the key circumvents the issue. Users can get a key however they wish and it can't reflect on them.

 

[ChaoticPumpkin]

I love when Nintendo’s lawyers just get bored and start taking down whatever they can! It works most the time though, the legal system is fucked.

It also just amazes me that a company can claim a short string of random alphanumeric characters as their intellectual property.

 

[eternal]

People also believed that emulators couldn’t be touched, but here we are…

You can reverse engineer a nin console into an emulator in python, visual basic, and an old access database, and they will still come for you.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

I'm amazed anyone thought they would actually let Dolphin be on Steam

 

[gudenau]

If this somehow manages to get to the Supreme Court there's a good chance Nintendo will win and change laws, they have been doing the opposite of the right thing a lot as of late and this would just be another example of that....

Post automatically merged: May 27, 2023

This isn’t good.

It's just a number, you can't copywrite a number. I'm not going to be super happy if we need to run the 42 program again...

Post automatically merged: May 27, 2023

I disagree, blatant negligence on anybody's part is often a determining factor in legal cases. Granted, it's not like losing a $100 bill, because it's more like purposefully placing it on the ground and then lashing out violently when it isn't still there an hour later. Nintendo's hardware has always had more security holes than a slice of Swiss cheese after a drive-by shooting, and if they aren't willing to own up to their failures in that regard, they should absolutely have their asses handed to them in court.

It's not a slippery slope because there's a clear line between competence and negligence, and the only one of the big three consistently on the wrong side of that line is Ninty. They're using the legal system in place of basic software security simply because they don't want to invest a little more in it; while cheaping out on console hardware to boot.

To be perfectly fair the Switch software security is really good now, it just happens to have an early bootrom bug and is susceptible to fault injection which they've never really had to deal with before...


Edit:
I'm also not a lawyer this isn't legal advice and yada yada.

 

[M7L7NK7]

So funny seeing all you anti Nintendo weirdos pop up and jump on the bandwagon like usual when this is the one time they're actually in the right

 

[Xzi]

To be perfectly fair the Switch software security is really good now, it just happens to have an early bootrom bug and is susceptible to fault injection which they've never really had to deal with before...

Well in this case we're talking about Wii, but it applies to Nintendo across their entire history as well. They have an unbroken streak of cracked consoles, and their consoles have always been fastest and easiest to crack with each new generation.

I'm amazed anyone thought they would actually let Dolphin be on Steam

RetroArch is on Steam with free plugins up to N64 and DS right on the store page. Nobody knew Dolphin was using a key that could be DMCA'd because Nintendo had never come after them before. Ninty just wanted to be dicks in this once particular instance simply because they could be.

 

[KingBlank]

So funny seeing all you anti Nintendo weirdos pop up and jump on the bandwagon like usual when this is the one time they're actually in the right

Hmm, you keen for retro games to only be playable by rich collectors?

 

[Ligeia]

It was bound to happen, I mean releasing an emulator on an official service seemed outlandish to me. Why not a NES emulator on PSN then

What's the point in releasing an emulator on Steam anyway ? You might as well just download the Windows app.

 

[17hitcombooo]

I'm amazed anyone thought they would actually let Dolphin be on Steam

nintendo would go berserk if they see stuff like yuzu on steam

 

[megahog2012]

It was bound to happen, I mean releasing an emulator on an official service seemed outlandish to me. Why not a NES emulator on PSN then

What's the point in releasing an emulator on Steam anyway ? You might as well just download the Windows app.

Something about cloud saves being one of the advantages

 

[ertaboy356b]

Nintendo doesn't go after Amazon & eBay for Emulator Boxes with their games pre-loaded on those devices same goes with the Fake NES & SNES Classic Editions........ Yet when it comes to Emulators & Homebrew Nintendo freak out about it.

This is incorrect, they did sue someone who sold bootleg emulator boxes: https://gamerant.com/soulja-boy-console-nintendo-lawsuit/

 

[Lather]

shitposting aside i say it because even on places dedicated to piracy you always have that group of nintendo dorks who insist they're only here for translation patches or unreleased games which makes their piracy justifiable unlike the rest of us unwashed masses.

we always have people fighting for the interests of capital enterprises in 2023