[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.

 

[urbanman2004]

Welp, this didn't age well... ‍♂

 

[Deleted member 559230]

Now maybe with all the voiced public interest in cloud saves will entice the Dolphin Team to add them to their emulator.

 

[Lumince]

I see Karma.

 

[Xzi]

It’s not like Nintendo put the keys out on a billboard for people to jot down. There was some work done to access them. “Poor security” or otherwise, someone made the effort to dig for and obtain this information.

Wasn't Wii's security defeated by a paperclip? I'm going to have to keep insisting that it's a special brand of negligence which makes all of Nintendo's trade secrets available to every fourth grader who has any interest in accessing them.

What I want to know is a two-parter:

1. Why choose now to go after Dolphin? I doubt Nintendo was unaware of these keys for this long.

2. Can Dolphin operate without them? Likely they’ll have to find a way, yeah?

1. Nintendo doesn't want emulators to be available on any major storefront because they stupidly believe standalone emulators require an advanced user to operate. They want to try to keep the barrier to entry high, even though it's lower than it's ever been.

2. AFAIK Dolphin can't operate without the keys, but so far they're not being asked to.

I knew about the key, they used to not have it. They put it in a few years ago because the Wii was super dead and it's a number that you can't copyright. (Again not a lawyer.)

Exactly, Wii is BEYOND dead, and Nintendo knows this as well. If they aren't ever going to provide another official means of buying these games, then the intellectual property rights in question are effectively worth nothing.

 

[eriol33]

Nintendo being Nintendo. It really needs a new leader, someone like Satya Nadella.

 

[Kioku]

Wasn't Wii's security defeated by a paperclip? I'm going to have to keep insisting that it's a special brand of negligence which makes all of Nintendo's trade secrets available to every fourth grader who has any interest in accessing them.

Was it a paperclip or tweezers?

 

[sarkwalvein]

Nintendo being Nintendo. It really needs a new leader, someone like Satya Nadella.

Erm... But why Satya Nadella?

Post automatically merged: May 27, 2023

Was it a paperclip or tweezers?

Just a well directed electricity conducting spit for all I care.
But yes, the lore says it was tweezers.
Not disregarding that, yes, Nintendo consoles have also been hacked with paperclips.
For Nintendo, any tool will work.

 

[Kioku]

Erm... But why Satya Nadella?

Post automatically merged: May 27, 2023

Just a well directed electricity conducting spit for all I care.
But yes, the lore says it was tweezers.
Not disregarding that, yes, Nintendo consoles have also been hacked with paperclips.
For Nintendo, any tool will work.

Well, yeah.. Anybody can be a modern day MacGyver with a Nintendo console.

 

[eriol33]

Erm... But why Satya Nadella?

Post automatically merged: May 27, 2023

Just a well directed electricity conducting spit for all I care.
But yes, the lore says it was tweezers.
Not disregarding that, yes, Nintendo consoles have also been hacked with paperclips.
For Nintendo, any tool will work.

If you remember Microsoft before Nadella, it's not that great. Under Nadella, Microsoft is actually becoming more open to collaborate with other software companies, and not locked the users entirely in a very closed ecosystem. Now Microsoft has a higher valuation as the business models proven to work, and it's now less hated compared to before.

Nintendo needs to embrace this change. They can print money by porting their old games to PC like Sony or at least make an official emulator and allow people to purchase games officially, but it seems they prefer to put them into a walled garden. Ironically, Nintendo made official licensed games on PC in the 90s.

 

[Xzi]

Well, yeah.. Anybody can be a modern day MacGyver with a Nintendo console.

Exactly. If your security gets bypassed by common household objects, you have the equivalent of no security at all. To use a burglary analogy, Nintendo doesn't just leave their door unlocked, they leave it wide open and have bright orange arrows painted on the floor which lead directly to all their valuables. What they're doing is a lot like insurance fraud in that regard, except they're using the legal system as an insurance policy. Which is something you'd think a judge would eventually take exception to.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Nintendo is truly pathetic.

RIP, Nintendo, you were good in the past.

 

[Sundree]

They way I see it, Nintendo and Valve are both companies with an infinite army of attorneys at their disposal and more money than god. That being said however, if Nintendo wins this case (and they very much could); that'll set a very scary president for digital preservation in the future. The work of decades destroyed in just a few days.

The only way I can see the Dolphin team getting around this is by somehow changing parts of the source-code for the Steam release.

 

[1dkreally]

The title gave me more of a scare than it should've, I plan on downloading Dolphin outside of Steam at some point and I thought Nintendo had shut it down altogether-
And now to hope that this message doesn't age like milk

 

[sarkwalvein]

The title gave me more of a scare than it should've, I plan on downloading Dolphin outside of Steam at some point and I thought Nintendo had shut it down altogether-
And now to hope that this message doesn't age like milk

Wellll... you can still pre-emptively download it....

 

[Xzi]

They way I see it, Nintendo and Valve are both companies with an infinite army of attorneys at their disposal and more money than god. That being said however, if Nintendo wins this case (and they very much could); that'll set a very scary president for digital preservation in the future. The work of decades destroyed in just a few days.

As much as I want Valve to go for the throat on this one, and I do believe they could win a case with the right arguments here, the reality is companies always try to avoid interacting with each other that way. There will be no legal action, as it was Valve who initially reached out to Ninty to ask if they were okay with Dolphin's inclusion on Steam.

Nintendo being Nintendo, they would've gotten even NES emulators removed from Steam by now if they could've. Those are entirely proprietary/open source, however.

 

[sarkwalvein]

As much as I want Valve to go for the throat on this one, and I do believe they could win a case with the right arguments here, the reality is companies always try to avoid interacting with each other that way. There will be no legal action, as it was Valve who initially reached out to Ninty to ask if they were okay with Dolphin's inclusion on Steam.

Nintendo being Nintendo, they would've gotten even NES emulators removed from Steam by now if they could've. Those are entirely proprietary/open source, however.

Legal battles cost money, and there's always the risk you could lose.
As they say, choose your battles.
That's probably the reason they asked Nintendo first.
I think Valve doesn't see any profit on taking the risk here.

 

[chrisrlink]

i see two things can come of this, 1 a dev counter sues goes up to the SCOTUS, hoping to overturn Sony v bleem in the process which i would (sadly) avise the devs not to counter cause of this risk is dolphin open and the Wii common key present? i would just remove that file like any other emulator to mittagate risk no key= future invalid dmca request like most bioses you need to supply your own which i'm sure is in Wii nand/vWii nand

 

[urbanman2004]

They way I see it, Nintendo and Valve are both companies with an infinite army of attorneys at their disposal and more money than god. That being said however, if Nintendo wins this case (and they very much could); that'll set a very scary president for digital preservation in the future. The work of decades destroyed in just a few days.

The only way I can see the Dolphin team getting around this is by somehow changing parts of the source-code for the Steam release.

What are you talking a/b? There is no case going on from a legal standpoint. The Dolphin team should just let go of this Steam launch date kerfuffle and allow access to download Dolphin from their website.

 

[chrisrlink]

Great....this gives them ammunition to shut Dolphin down completely (which is what they are ultimately aiming for)

actually easy fix be like every other emulator make the user supply their own keys...oh wait

 

[Xzi]

Legal battles cost money, and there's always the risk you could lose.
As they say, choose your battles.
That's probably the reason they asked Nintendo first.
I think Valve doesn't see any profit on taking the risk here.

Coincidentally, I think this is the type of case Valve might've been more willing to take on when they didn't already have so much money and weren't yet so well-regarded with gamers. Now that both companies are behemoths they're not as inclined to shake up the hornet's nest.

That said, even I as a laymen can see where Ninty's case is weak:

Thus, use of the Dolphin emulator unlawfully 'circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under' the Copyright Act.

"Effectively" is the key word here, and any reasonable judge would rule security bypassed by tweezers is not an "effective technological measure" that "controls access" to anything. Nintendo is in the wrong for blaming Steam/Dolphin for their own failings, and if there was any justice in the universe they'd be reprimanded/fined for wasting so much of the courts' time/resources, now and in the past.