Stung By ‘Zelda’ Leak, Nintendo Decides To Go To War With Switch Emulation
from the nintendon't dept
And here we go. Fresh after Nintendo got a pie in its face when, by intent or by confused retailers, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom leaked early, you just knew that the company would completely wig out. At first the company took the sort of useless actions it always takes in the face of leaks: DMCA the leaks, DMCA the listings for the game, and DMCA to hell anyone that streamed any content from the unreleased game. That’s the normal playbook, despite none of it really working all that well. Once the leak is out, it’s out and bottling up the leak on the internet is an exercise in futility.
But I didn’t necessarily think that the leak of this particular game would lead Nintendo into war with every possible component of Switch emulation and the tools used to pull it off.
Simon Aarons maintained a forked repository of Lockpick, a tool (along with Lockpick_RCM) that grabbed the encryption keys from a Nintendo Switch and allowed it to run officially licensed games. Aarons tweeted on Thursday night that Nintendo had issued DMCA takedown requests to GitHub, asking Lockpick, Lockpick_RCM, and nearly 80 forks and derivations to be taken down under section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which largely makes illegal the circumvention of technological protection measures that safeguard copyrighted material.
Seeing Nintendo’s move on Lockpick, a popular Switch emulator on Android, Skyline, called it quits over the weekend, at least as a public-facing tool you can easily download to your phone. In a Discord post[Edit, 5pm Eastern: Previously described as removed, but now linked], developer “Mark” wrote that “the risks associated with a potential legal case are too high for us to ignore, and we cannot continue knowing that we may be in violation of copyright law.”
These are tools. They are not files or software that directly infringe Nintendo’s copyright. They may violate section 1201, but that’s different than saying these tools directly infringe anyone’s copyright. Instead, for instance, they allow a Switch owner to emulate their Switch on a PC to play games he or she legally owns. That may violate anti-circumvention, but not copyright. To that point, Skyline has already stated that it believed its tool was legal for that reason… but has voluntarily shut itself down anyway out of fear.
And just with its prior DMCA efforts to bottle up the initial leak, there is very little Nintendo is going to get out of all this.
Every time Nintendo clamps down on the tools used to enable piracy, it also disrupts the ecosystems that produce Linux installations, homebrew games and tools, and emulators for legally purchased games. That said, Tears of the Kingdom is rather easy to find online at the moment, as are exhaustive guides to getting the game running in PC emulation tools. The cat seems entirely out of the bag, but this cat also requires hours of effort to get running smoothly on even the most upgraded PC and requires lots of downloads from sites that push ad blockers to their limits.
In other words, Nintendo is tossing some minor roadblocks in the way for those who would want to pirate the game to begin with. All while kneecapping the homebrew Switch scene that it clearly doesn’t care about.
Wouldn’t it be more productive to treat its fans better and build up some loyalty with the public?
Filed Under: dmca, dmca 1201, emulation, nintendo switch, switch, zelda
Companies: nintendo
Comments on “Stung By ‘Zelda’ Leak, Nintendo Decides To Go To War With Switch Emulation”
These are not really “DMCA takedown requests”, then, are they? My understanding is that section 1201 has no takedown provisions—that DMCA takedowns are only for copyright infringement.
The difference may be important, given that courts have ruled that DMCA takedown requests may only be made after considering fair use. Something that resembles a DMCA takedown request, but isn’t one, could escape that rule.
Re:
Section. 1201 declares bypassing Technical protection measures copyright infingement. 1201 establishes the basis for a copyright claim, and the dmca notice is issued over that claim. That’s what is being discussed.
Re: Re:
Are you sure? Here’s section 1201. It starts off with “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” Section 1203 and 1204 discuss the penalties, which seem independent of copyright infringement (that being covered in chapter 5, §§501–513; 512 has the takedown procedures relating to “claimed infringement“).
Re: Re: Re:
“No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”
Still not sure what this means, I doubt its author does either.
i’ve been waiting for them to go to war over all the things. Small mercy they, as yet, have not.
Nintendo's Customer Relations Motto
Cause fuck ’em. That’s why.
Re:
NO UNAUTHORIZED FUN ALLOWED!
re: they allow a Switch owner to emulate their Switch on a PC to play games he or she legally owns.
Why did you add the word “legally” to that sentence?
How does the pc check it’s running a ‘legal’ copy.
Does it use disingenuous tabloid bullshit??
Re:
It’s just worth stressing the “legally” part. A lot of the objections against emulation stop having any basis in reality once you know that people do actually use it for stuff they legally own.
“How does the pc check it’s running a ‘legal’ copy.”
It doesn’t. DRM defaults to assuming you’re a pirate unless you pass an arbitrary check, which itself can fail on a legal copy. That’s why DRM is so damaging and counter-productive – it only affects people who legally own a copy, the pirates will never encounter it because it’s been removed from their copies.
Re: Re:
Yep. A tool for punishing paying customers for having the audacity to go out and buy the product instead of pirating it. Utterly backwards logic, but there you are.
As an aside, most people I know who play Nintendo games wouldn’t dream of doing so on Nintendo hardware, not when something like the Ayaneo 2 can run otherwise frankly unplayable Switch games via emulation at much steadier higher framerates. But they’re absolutely “Nintendo fans” who will go out and buy those games in order to play them.
If not for the fact that nintendo’s the only company in the industry actually turning a profit on its hardware, they’d be doing them a favour in that regard, too.
Re: Re: Re:
(Although, I guess the unreliability of the Switch and the frequency with which I see customers complaining about needing to replace it could be seen as less of a bug and more of a feature, given it’s not a loss leader like an XBox or Playstation)
Re: Re: Re:
“A tool for punishing paying customers for having the audacity to go out and buy the product instead of pirating it.”
Even more than that, since some people will buy a copy then run the DRM-free copy to avoid the problems. Literally attacking their own customers.
I don’t believe that piracy is the main issue facing the industry now, nor really has it even been. But, it makes a nice scapegoat for investors and there’s a lucrative industry in pretend shields.
in the future, there will be no exclusives; only differences in optimization
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
sad
sa
In a world…
Where Nintendo licenses Microsoft (Rare?), Sony (Insomniac?), and Capcom to make their own unique versions of Zelda/Link games…
NO ONE IS SAFE!
Re:
…what
Re: Re:
Imagine Nintendo allowing Sony, Microsoft, and a good 3rd party developer (Capcom, Square Enix, whoever), to each develop their own version of a Zelda game, and each game is fully optimized for it’s platform(s).
Imagine Link as the antagonist, or a Zelda fps – nevermind I hate fps games, but you get it…
Re: Re: Re:
Nintendo has already sort-of done that: Capcom developed the two Oracle games for the Game Boy Color and The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance, and Brace Yourself Games developed Cadence of Hyrule for the Switch. What I’m asking is what the hell does Nintendo’s legal licensing of an IP to a third-party developer have to do with piracy, DRM, and the DMCA.
jeez! is there no end to the way Nintendo can keep demonising itself to customers? there’ll always be an element that will want what it shouldn’t have but usually customers want to enhance what’s available, it’s a way of showing how happy they are with what has been released and dont deserve this load of crap!!
Re:
That would first require Nintendo to suffer actual consequences for its bullshit. Since that isn’t happening, Nintendo will be more than happy to take minor PR hits on the way to selling millions of Zelda games.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Nintendo
Nintendo has a long history of protecting its intellectual property and has taken legal action against individuals and organizations that engage in activities such as selling or distributing emulators or ROMs (read-only memory) of its games. The company has also taken steps to make it more difficult to emulate its hardware, such as implementing unique hardware components and encryption.
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Nintendo Decides To Go To War With Switch Emulation
Ultimately, the issue of Switch emulation is a complex one, and there are valid arguments on both sides. While it is important for companies like Nintendo to protect their intellectual property rights, it is also important to consider the potential benefits of emulation and to find ways to balance these competing interests in a way that is fair and beneficial to all parties involved.
https://www.hottupitea.us/tp-tsl
When has Nintendo NOT been at war with emulation? They’ve hated the idea of anyone being able to emulate their consoles as far back as I can remember.