Dolphin Emulator team officially abandons planned Steam release

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Almost two months ago, the team behind the Dolphin Emulator announced that they had put their planned Steam release on hold indefinitely following a cease and desist order from Nintendo, but did not cancel their plans outright, instead promising to review their options and come back with a more detailed response in the future. In a new blog post today, the Dolphin team explained what happened in more detail and what this means for the future of Dolphin.

The blog post begins by giving a more detailed account of what happened back in May. Valve's legal department initiated contact with Nintendo to inform them of Dolphin's upcoming release on Steam; in response, Nintendo of America requested Valve block the release, citing the anti-circumvention provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Valve then told the Dolphin team they needed Nintendo's approval before they would allow the emulator to release on Steam. The Dolphin team believes, given Nintendo's long history of fighting emulation, that this will be impossible and have officially cancelled all plans to release Dolphin on Steam.

Much of the conversation surrounding Dolphin's removal from Steam revolved around the Wii Common Key. This is what the Wii uses to decrypt its games, and has been publicly available online (and in Dolphin's code) for more than 15 years. However, Nintendo cited the use of "proprietary cryptographic keys" in its letter to Valve, claiming that because the "Dolphin emulator operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s authorization" it constitutes a violation of the anti-circumvention provisions in the DMCA.

This section of the DMCA states that "no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" and also prohibits the trafficking of any technology that "is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." In this case, Nintendo believes that the encryption on Wii games counts as a technological measure to control access to a copyrighted work, and that Dolphin's primary purpose is to circumvent those measures through decryption.

However, the Dolphin team is confident that this will not affect Dolphin in any way going forward. They argue that Dolphin's primary purpose is to "recreate the GameCube and Wii hardware as software, and to provide the means for a user to interact with this emulated environment" and that only a very small portion of their code relates to circumvention. GameCube games have no encryption on them, and Dolphin is also used to develop game mods or homebrew games.

They also believe they are covered by the reverse-engineering exemptions laid out in the same anti-circumvention provisions. The reverse engineering exemption states that it is okay to circumvent these control measures to enable "interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs."

"Dolphin is an independently created computer program that is circumventing Wii disc encryption for interoperability with Wii software," reads Dolphin's blog post. "According to this exemption, this does not constitute infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 1201."

As such, the Dolphin team will not remove the Wii Common Key from future releases, and firmly believe Dolphin is not in any legal danger. They will continue to develop and improve Dolphin, and even plan to implement some features intended for the Steam version; namely, a Big Picture GUI mode that is fully usable with a controller.
 

ihaveahax

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I don't see any particular reason to add Dolphin to steam in the first place, anyhow. Why would you? You can just download it, easy as that
Like mentioned earlier, it would have provided automatic updates and Steam Cloud support, which is useful for Steam Deck users and anyone who plays on multiple devices. Not having to set these up manually is the main appeal. Same reasons why anyone would use other emulators or other non-game software on Steam.
 

FireyShrimp

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Like mentioned earlier, it would have provided automatic updates and Steam Cloud support, which is useful for Steam Deck users and anyone who plays on multiple devices. Not having to set these up manually is the main appeal. Same reasons why anyone would use other emulators or other non-game software on Steam.
Ah, that makes sense. Auto-updating sounds pretty nifty compared to having to replace/delete the folder every time
 

smf

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But i dont understand why not just remove the part that is problematic and make it so that user need to obtain it, and not be integrated.
The part being the bit that decrypts wii games?

They could do that and tell people to decrypt their games, then be sued for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

It would be better for everyone if they kept their heads down.

Nintendo can't legally stop them if what they're doing is acceptable by law.
What they are doing is not acceptable by law. It is in nobodies interest to go to court to actually prove that.

With over 25 years in emulation, I have literally no idea what they were thinking.
 
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raging_chaos

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I think Nintendo did it right this time. I would have NEVER paid money for a Wii/Gamecube emulator that lets you play ISOs that you can download for FREE on the Internet.

Dolphin isn't a commercial emulator so your post makes no sense.

It would be better for everyone if they kept their heads down...

It is in nobody's interest to go to court...

This 100%. Doesn't matter which side wins it risks further defining laws and drawing lines that could have negative effects for everyone involved instead of keeping it a gray area like it is now.
 
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smf

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This 100%. Doesn't matter which side wins it risks further defining laws and drawing lines that could have negative effects for everyone involved instead of keeping it a gray area like it is now.
It's not even a grey area, it's a "we'll look the other way if you don't make too much noise" area.

All the people coming in demanding "I want to be able to do whatever I want with MY console" are really bad for the scene. I don't care what you do, just don't draw attention.

Those peacocking how cool they are with hacked consoles etc, is kinda sad.
 

Darkedone02

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SO Retroarch was able to be put on steam but dolphin cannot, and dolphin coward out? I guess they can't follow how retroarch got though and change things up.

It should not be hard to put dolphin on your steamdeck anyways, because I think that's why dolphin try to add themselves on steam to see about ease of access for the steamdeck users. SADLY NOT! Got to do things differently from here on out.
 

raging_chaos

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That wouldn't be a solution to the problem. They don't have a homebrew method of decrypting Wii discs on the fly.

This video explains the ins and outs of what's going on and the laws being cited on both ends.

 
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Lumstar

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This 100%. Doesn't matter which side wins it risks further defining laws and drawing lines that could have negative effects for everyone involved instead of keeping it a gray area like it is now.

The whole ordeal sounds cut and dry to me. It is against the DMCA for an individual to decrypt a Wii game for personal use. Exemptions for libraries, museums, or the like don't apply.
 

raging_chaos

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The company that owns the copyright is the one who can sue you, not the government.

The government's role is to enforce the law, but they are not directly involved in the legal action against you in DMCA cases.

Sony lost twice when it tried to fight the legality of emulation directly. Nintendo won't go that route, they will specifically argue that Dolphin is not allowed to use their cryptographic keys. Dolphin would argue it's fair use in reverse engineering.
 

ChronosNotashi

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when I first read about it cming to steam , I knew there was no way in hell it would actually happen. Not sure what they was even thinking.
Yeah. I didn't even know that Dolphin was trying to release on Steam until I saw the news that Valve delisted it. That said, even if I did know, my response would've still been the same, which was; "Really? What did they expect would be Nintendo's reaction to a well-known emulator attempt to push itself into mainstream media?" Followed by expecting the obvious complaints from people who hate Nintendo for simply breathing.
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This 100%. Doesn't matter which side wins it risks further defining laws and drawing lines that could have negative effects for everyone involved instead of keeping it a gray area like it is now.
Not to mention that either way, there's a very good chance that Dolphin would eventually cease to exist, even if the dev team were to win the theoretical case, simply because of the dev team being bled dry through legal fees. Best case scenario: they become a "martyr for the cause", and someone else has to pick up the pieces of the Gamecube/Wii emulation space. There is no outcome where Dolphin would benefit in the slightest, should the issue end up being brought to court.
 
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AkikoKumagara

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Ah, that makes sense. Auto-updating sounds pretty nifty compared to having to replace/delete the folder every time
Dolphin has a built-in auto updater since... a while ago. You can also force an update check in the Help menu.
(maybe this is only on Windows? But I can't imagine why that would be)

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