Nintendo DMCAing emulators in bid to remain relevant to anyone older than 10

[Raijin Z]

Nintendo Asks GitHub to Shut Down Game Boy Emulator
Many gaming fans love to play old console games in browser emulations, but Nintendo is less amused by these fan-made recreations. Last week the company sued two sites that offered access to its games, and in a separate effort, the company also removed a repository from GitHub that offered access to Game Boy Advance games.
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Nintendo Asks GitHub to Shut Down Game Boy Emulator
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So never mind that the overwhelming majority of emulators are fully legal, and it's not like there are legitimate, free, homebrew games of professional quality out there or anything. Well, just because the horse has bolted doesn't mean that you can't retroactively shut the door. It's not as if we live in a linear time universe.

[Gryson]

The article clearly states the emulator in question was giving access to ROMs through the browser. That's the problem. Not the emulator itself.

Move along...

[Raijin Z]

This is a trial run for Nintendo to gain more legal foothold. They've done this in the past, but bitten off more than they could chew, having the US Government set a hard limit for damage claims in response.

[The Jackal]

[Leynos]

They are going after ROMS.ROMS are illegal. They have every right to protect their IPs. Piracy helped kill the Dreamcast.

[Black_Tiger]

They are going after ROMS.ROMS are illegal. They have every right to protect their IPs. Piracy helped kill the Dreamcast.

Only selling unlicensed Nintendo roms without their official containers is illegal in some/most(?) places. I bought lots of roms from Nintendo through authorized retailers and played them on the hardware I bought from authorized retailers.

Don't forget all of the immoral and illegal things Nintendo did bitd.

[Sik]

Giving away the ROMs for free is illegal too. As long as Nintendo didn't approve it it's illegal, period. And yeah, the issue here was clearcut, the emulator was being distributed with ROMs they didn't have permission to, ergo it's illegal.

It is true that Nintendo tried to declare emulators illegal by claiming patent infringement back in the day, but that didn't pan out for them, and this is not the case here either.

[foxnoodles]

Most of those Games fall under abandonware, no copyright nor patent, nothing's alive.. unless someone claims ownership it's 100% legal to share those. Games/Franchises owned by Nintendo or any currently active Legal Entity are of course illegal to share.

[Mad Moham]

Wow, what a clickbait thread title. I'm pretty sure Nintendo are allowed to take legal action against piracy. It might be inconvenient for some gamers, but if Nintendo fail to take action then it could potentially set a legal precedent that allows anyone to pirate games.

I understand how that could be very annoying, but I'm pretty sure that the rom distributors knew the risks when they started.

On a bit of a side note, I've noticed that the whole attitude people have towards roms has changed a lot over the years.

[axel]

Most of those Games fall under abandonware, no copyright nor patent, nothing's alive.. unless someone claims ownership it's 100% legal to share those. Games/Franchises owned by Nintendo or any currently active Legal Entity are of course illegal to share.

Not in the U.S. they aren't. Anything 1978-present is covered for the life of the author + 70 years. There are a few Nintendo games from 1977 that might be out of copyright now if they weren't renewed. Has anyone emulated the Color TV-Game 6?

[foxnoodles]

Not in the U.S. they aren't. Anything 1978-present is covered for the life of the author + 70 years. There are a few Nintendo games from 1977 that might be out of copyright now if they weren't renewed. Has anyone emulated the Color TV-Game 6?

what happens when the "author" was a company that does not exist anymore, nor anyone has ever bought any rights to own the companies assets?(majority of games are in this state, nintendo never owned them)

[axel]

what happens when the "author" was a company that does not exist anymore, nor anyone has ever bought any rights to own the companies assets?(majority of games are in this state, nintendo never owned them)

I don't pretend to be an attorney but it would seem that if the company went out of business the games could be public domain. Are you sure no one bought up those IPs, though? I would find that surprising for all but the most obscure titles.

[Sik]

1) Hiers get them.
2) Everything gets sold on bankruptcy, period (if it doesn't then it stays around waiting until somebody does it)

And if nobody ever claims copyright on something, it's an orphaned work, which means nobody can do anything with it until somebody can figure out who actually owned it. Which is essentially never. (this is why libraries are desperate to make exceptions for orphaned works)

Also we're in an era where game rereleases are becoming the norm, so the idea of abandonware is 100% bullshit now (especially with Nintendo games since Nintendo remains around and sometimes brings up games that are pretty obscure - X would have gone practically forgotten if they hadn't referenced it in Brawl).

[Black_Tiger]

Nintendo themselves use these sites and sold pirated roms without acquiring the rights to the content they do not own:

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2017-0...-it-back-to-us


They also fought in courts for years to continue cheating the company that made Donkey Kong, until they ran out of legal avenues.

[Mad Moham]

If anyone really believes that many of the games are abandonware and that there's no legal issues with distributing the roms, then I suppose the best thing to do is to just shut up about it because the operators of the rom sites have nothing to worry about?
As far as I'm aware, Nintendo are allowed to maintain copyright on their games. Just because some people are used to pirating roms and are now being inconvenienced, doesn't mean that Nintendo have to give you their games for free.

Nintendo themselves use these sites and sold pirated roms without acquiring the rights to the content they do not own:

https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2017-0...-it-back-to-us

I may be remembering this incorrectly, but I'm pretty sure that the story of Nintendo acquiring a pirated rom was debunked. Even if it wasn't debunked, Nintendo can still make changes to their policy regarding how they handle rom sites.