‘Nintendo Power’ Scans Disappeared From The Internet Archive
from the nintendon't dept
It was only some weeks back that we were discussing how a group of hobbyists were once again doing the culture preservation work that content creators should be doing in the form of a scan of every single Nintendo Power magazine and uploading it to the Internet Archive. At the time, you could go to the link for the project and view every magazine’s contents in its full antiquated glory. I finished that post off with the following line after ruminating that the view on this by Nintendo should be that this is pure preservation and not some kind of threat to its current business operations:
Hopefully Nintendo can manage to see that as well. Somehow, though, I suspect the lawyers already have pen to paper.
But, as I’m fond of saying, Nintendo is going to Nintendo. If you go to the site for the project now, you’ll see that the content has been replaced with a notice indicating that the content has been taken down. Annoyingly, the text displayed now doesn’t detail out why it’s been taken down, but rather indicates a bunch of possible reasons: TOS violations, a decision by the uploader, etc. Because of that, I can’t say for sure that Nintendo’s lawyers got involved to get this content taken down, but it’s a pretty safe bet. Why?
Well, because the company has done this exact thing before. At that link, you can read a Wired post on how Nintendo took down 140 issues worth of scans, also from the Internet Archive, back in 2016.
The 140+ issues of classic gaming magazine Nintendo Power that were uploaded to the Internet Archive are once again the preserve of physical collectors and forgotten boxes stashed in attics. Nintendo, the original publisher of the title, has had the digital collection pulled.
While no formal announcement has been given on the takedown, Nintendo of America told Polygon that it must “protect our own characters, trademarks and other content” and “the unapproved use of Nintendo’s intellectual property can weaken our ability to protect and preserve it, or to possibly use it for new projects.”
What’s clear here is that either Nintendo requested the content be taken down directly or either the Internet Archive or the uploader did so purely out of fear of Nintendo’s lawyers. Either way, as I’m often wont to do, I am happy to blame Nintendo for this.
And you really do have to keep it in your head that there both is no threat to Nintendo for not figuring out a way to allow this to exist, nor is Nintendo doing anything itself to achieve the same preservation efforts that the upload achieved. It’s not like there’s an official Nintendo site out there where all of this culture is being preserved. If there were, the IA.org scans wouldn’t need to exist.
It’s a net loss for culture, all because Nintendo just can’t stop being Nintendo.
Filed Under: archives, copyright, nintendo power, terms of service, trademark
Companies: nintendo
Comments on “‘Nintendo Power’ Scans Disappeared From The Internet Archive”
Given the large number of Nintendo Power scans that continue to remain on Internet Archive and the person in question uploading scans created by other people without their permission, it seems likely that there might be more to this particular issue.
If copyright maximalists had their way, all media older than 30 years would be magically erased from existence, never to be seen again.
I’ve actually seen people defend perpetual copyright by arguing that it would be “unfair” if new releases had to compete with earlier works. According to them, it’s a Good Thing™ for old media to be destroyed, because that forces consumers to buy new media in its place.
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Notably absent from the argument is of course that there wouldn’t be new media if that old media wasn’t around to be built off of, such that the people espousing eternal copyright are very much trying to burn the ladder that they just climbed so no one can follow behind them.
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Reminded of Tom Scott’s video about a speculative world where a copyright enforcement AI causes an apocalypse by deciding that people’s memories are “unauthorised copies”. It’s really not all that far from what copyright maximalists want. A world void of the potential for creativity.
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So…copyright maximalists are also conservative Christian evangelicals? 😏
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Ironically, Phylis Schafly was the opposite of a © maximalist as she opposed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act around the time it was being legislated.
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I guess a broken clock really is right twice a day.
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Holy crap, what?
Wow. Learn something new every day, i guess.
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At the risk of linking to a heinous woman’s website, here’s the proof: https://eagleforum.org/column/2002/july02/02-07-03.shtml
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On a separate article, I mentioned that I believe companies do see competition between their new works and anything that may get into the public domain. But I don’t think this is a defense nor is it a good thing for old media to be destroyed or never placed into the public domain.
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If your new work will be directly competing (and losing) with a work going into the public domain… doesn’t that imply that the new work is unneeded by society and so shouldn’t have copyright protection?
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Sane Copyright
If we had Sane copyright (18 years, 1 renewal) the first 2 years and most of the 3rd year would be out of copyright and they could tell Nintendo to pound Sand. In fact 4 years of Nintendo games would also be out of copyright and free to play as one wants.
This is an absolute Trove of gaming culture.
Instead Ill be dead before Mario Brothers gets out of Copyright. Likely all originals of Mario and NES systems will be dead too.
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Not to mention © law would be “opt-in” instead of “opt-out”. It’s possible the Nintendo Power magazines would be in the public domain because they weren’t copyrighted, or like you implied, only copyrighted for 18 years without renewing for an extra 18. US © law used to be so much saner and we were the last holdouts to sign on to the execrable Berne Convention. In fact, Science Fiction magazines with short stories by authors had their copyrights expire early thanks to this saner renewal system. That’s why you’ll find works by Philip K. Dick and Frank Herbert on Project Gutenberg despite now being less then 70 years after their death.
Now I admit there are some holes my my understanding of copyright law but, how many shots of vodka does it take to arrive at if we don’t take down these scans someone can steal all of our IP?
Nintendo: 'Because We Hate You'
Ah Nintendo, a company that never passes up a chance to backhand their biggest fans.
Personally I’m inclined to say that they should get their way here, if they’re that against the archiving of their own history let it rot and disappear, not like there’s a scarcity of other culture and content that will fill in the blanks.
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The above was mine, apparently the system decided to sign me out in between comments…
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… and halfway across the Internet, Nintendo stings its fanbase. As the fanbase dies, it asks why? Nintendo replies, “It is our nature…”
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To wit: Look at all the drama surrounding the competitve Smash Bros. scene from the past week or two.
Nintendo… relegating itself to an unreadable footnote of history.
Copyright is theft
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The authors – who, need I remind you, without copyright would not write a single word – don’t seem to think so.
/s
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[laughs in CC Zero]
Plenty of creators make creative works without any thought to copyright—or to monetization of those works. To act like all creators across all creative fields around the world rely on copyright as the first/only incentive for creation is to delude yourself.
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(And yes, I noticed the sarc-mark. Just wanted to have my say here.)
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On that topic, I have written a Happy Birthday song and waived my copyright on it with a CC-Zero waiver. See here: https://archive.org/details/happybirthdaypublicdomain
Just wait until they ‘reintroduce’ Mario in 2222, everyone will think it’s totally new and buy it again… amirite?
The only thing that surprises me about this takedown is that it took as long as it did.
Haven't played my Switch since I got my Steam Deck
Ever since I got my Steam Deck, I haven’t even been playing my Nintendo Switch yet, so if you’re looking at me to give some Nintendo defense or apologia, look elsewhere. Valve has also done three things with the Steam Deck that Nintendo wouldn’t do with the Switch in a million years (or at least until their commercial life cycle is over): allow their users to fix, mod, and install external OSes thereon.
Why bother living in a Nintendo cage when I can escape through the Valve to freedom?
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The Steam Deck runs a Linux distribution, and Steam is available for installation on any Linux. They are not so concerned about Piracy that they want the total lockdown of other games consuls,
Japan as a rule is very hardline on intellectual property enforcement.
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It used to be not the case. Capcom and Arc Studios are not hardline at all and embrace their fans. Also, have you ever heard of Doujinshi Manga? There was a thriving culture there. Also, Ken Akamatsu, Mangaka of Love Hina was worried about what would happen to Japanese Culture as a result of the Trans-Pacific Partnership: https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-10-31/negima-akamatsu-warns-against-changing-japan-copyright-law
Maybe it’s not Japanese Culture but law imposed on Japan that’s causing this. As for Nintendo, they’ve always been like this.
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I wonder what Nintendo would do if someone created a new trading card game based off of the Great Giana Sisters, and did e-Zines named Giana Strength?
Nintendo seems ripe for someone to set up a complete parody company that parodies all Nintendo offerings. It would only need a few developers and creatives, and then some full-time lawyers.
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Capcom and ArcSys kinda have to embrace their fans because without them, the fighting game scene would be dead in the water—and so would the fighting games those companies make. Those companies need the FGC. Nintendo can afford to alienate the FGC because it doesn’t need to embrace competitive Smash in any way, least of all as a means to help sell more copies of Smash.
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Is.
Despite the insane copyright maximalism Japan seems to have, I keep getting reminded that Japan is seemingly a creative powerhouse and still manages to surprise everyone without fail.
Even if I suspect that the reason Japanese creative corporations turn a blind eye to all this creativity is because there’s a ready pool of easily exploitable, highly trained workers for their creative industries…
nintendo likes to take down anything that does,nt make it money , even if it celebrates old games
and promotes interest in old games .i think its cost in japan copyright laws are very strict.
it doesnt seem to matter if it annoys fans .
nintendo also stopped a major smash bros esports event from happening because it competing it another officially santioned tournament.
its the only company that tried to control
people playing games playthroughs on youtube,
ALL other game publishers,devs recognise game videos are free advertising and promotion.
yes the laws in japan are completely different from american law
OF course it probably feels in a good position the switch is selling well in most countrys and
its making good profits on games
so if annoys a few fans by overly strict legal action ,so what.?