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Following their controversial takedown of The Big House's tournament due to use of Slippi (a mod that allows Super Smash Bros. Melee to be played online) and their cancellation of the Splatoon 2 NA Open's livestream due to teams showing support to the Super Smash Bros. Melee community, Nintendo has demanded that the Etikons be taken down due to copyright infringement. The Etikons were custom JoyCon shells designed to honor the late YouTube creator Desmond Daniel Amofah, commonly known as Etika. The campaign manager, CptnAlex, had initially been selling the Etikons through an Indiegogo fundraising campaign, and after the campaign had ended, he was selling remaining stock through Etsy until Nintendo's lawyers sent the C&D. This takedown is considered to be controversial because these JoyCon shells were designed to honor the deceased and because all proceeds were going to suicide prevention, and the reason for the takedown is believed to be due to the term "JoyCon" being printed on the shells. The Etikons raised over $10K for the JED Foundation.
Following my request for comment, CptnAlex had this to say:
CptnAlex said:I just wanted to say that there’s a lot of misinformation and assumptions floating around. I received a C&D for multiple items on my Etsy shop, this was one of them. A lot of people are saying this was a “blanket” C&D and wasnt specifically about these joy-cons, and that’s simply not true. The C&D I received was NOT simply “remove every single item from your shop” - it very specifically listed exactly which items in my shop Nintendo wanted removed. The Etika Joycons, or Etikons, were one of those links they attached. Along with the listing of their trademark for the word Joycon and the trademark for the switch logo. The Etikons are the only item I’ve ever sold with the word Joycon printed on them, so it’s abundantly clear to me that they were specifically referencing and targeting the Etika Joycons in this case, even though they did target other listings at the same time.
Lastly I did want to say that while everyone wants to hate on Nintendo, the lawyer was actually incredibly nice and accommodating. I had numerous back and forth with her in order to get my shop in compliance. Our email chain ended with me asking for licensing, and her passing on my request to Nintendo. While I don’t expect anything to ever come of that request, it was nice that it was passed on instead of a flat denial.
Source: Twitter
Last edited by PrincessLillie,