Blogger Issues DMCA Notice To Take Down Posts Infringing His 'How To Infringe' Post
from the yo-dawg,-i-herd-you-liked-infringement... dept
Anurag Ghosh is a blogger who would like to have some infringing posts removed from the web. See if you can spot the point when Ghosh’s irony detector malfunctions.
Copyright claim #0:
My article, “How to Play Nintendo DS Games on Android”, is infringed by the text excerpted on the site, beginning with the text: “Did you know that your Android device can play NDS games? With the help of an emulator (yes there is a free, open-source DS emulator out there on Google Play), you can play games like Phoenix Wright, Dragon Quest IX and Touch Detective on your phone.”
Original work URL(s):
http://anurag2008.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Play-Nintendo-DS-Games-on-Android
To paraphrase: “Yeah, it looks like some people have infringed my post about infringing, so if you could do me a solid and take those out, that would be great.
Ghosh’s post, titled “How to Play Nintendo Games on your Android,” does exactly what it says on the tin, pointing readers toward a free, open-source emulator, providing instructions on installing an NDS BIOS and directing readers towards Google to search for .nds ROMs. Ghosh has thoughtfully included the following “warning” on his post.
Downloading ROMs and BIOS files is illegal. I don’t support piracy and this guide is only for entertainment purpose. Reader discretion is advised.
The discussion about whether emulation = infringement can wait for another day, but I’m very definitely sure Nintendo considers emulation of current gen hardware/software to be infringing. In fact, Nintendo seems to get a bit irate about it when “questioned” about it, according to its extensive FAQ on emulation.
How Does Nintendo Feel About the Emergence of Video Game Emulators?
The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers. As is the case with any business or industry, when its products become available for free, the revenue stream supporting that industry is threatened. Such emulators have the potential to significantly damage a worldwide entertainment software industry which generates over $15 billion annually, and tens of thousands of jobs.
How Come Nintendo Does Not Take Steps Towards Legitimizing Nintendo Emulators?
Emulators developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software promote piracy. That’s like asking why doesn’t Nintendo legitimize piracy. It doesn’t make any business sense. It’s that simple and not open to debate.
Wow. Testy. Ghosh knows it, too. Hence the disclaimer.
Now, Ghosh may have a legitimate claim that his post is being scraped (or reposted) without his consent, but complaining about infringers infringing your post about infringement is more than a little like sending an official notice informing Google that listed kettles are black and infringing on your original pot’s blackness. Perhaps the offending scrapers could just put up a little “warning” stating they copied Ghosh’s post for “entertainment purposes only.” It certainly entertained me.
Filed Under: anurag ghosh, dmca, emulators, irony, takedowns
Companies: nintendo
Comments on “Blogger Issues DMCA Notice To Take Down Posts Infringing His 'How To Infringe' Post”
*facepalm*
Please stop, Mr. Ghoush. You’re making us real pirates look bad.
I never got why companies never sold a legal emulator, with legal roms of their games on PC.
It’d sure be nice to have an official version to actually pay for, especially since I have no interest in buying and owning a console, both because the price and the fact I’m always doing stuff on my PC anyways. Official nintendo SNES emulator with networked play and a huge back catalogue of games? Yes please. Official DS emulator with their full catalogue of games? Double yes, there’s definitely a few that I’d like to play that I can’t seem to get my hands on cause they stopped making them before I went after them.
I can’t imagine the cost is that high either, most emulators are done by very small teams without insider knowledge in the first place.
Give us a legal option and many like myself will buy. The argument that “piracy exists here, therefore we should do nothing” is wrong headed. Some will continue to pirate, but more than a few seem willing to throw down the bucks for things, just look at Steam in Russia.
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Nintendo and other console makers dont want emulation because they want you to buy their hardware, if you want old games you should buy their latest console and look for a classics pack, cant find one, to bad….
what they want is you to buy the console/handheld and every single game, hell what they would really like on top of that is if they could tie all the games to the first one that loads them, then if that unit dies, the person has to buy all the games again…..
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More to the point, there would be several features of handheld consoles that can’t be emulated on PC, even if the developer wanted to: such as the 3DS’s 3D (which is different from what you get through Nvidia or AMD graphics cards, its glasses-free), 3D camera; or the PS Vita’s rear touchpad. Previous generations of handhelds were simple enough: a screen, speaker, and buttons. Simple enough to map them to PC. Now, you’ve got features for which there isn’t a PC analogue.
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such as the 3DS’s 3D (which is different from what you get through Nvidia or AMD graphics cards, its glasses-free), 3D camera; or the PS Vita’s rear touchpad
Tablet pcs? Tablets themselves? Emulate 3D sensation?
Not enough reason not to go for emulation. I don’t care about cameras and if the absence of rear touchpads is an issue then don’t emulate that specific console. 3D can be downscaled to 2D if needed.
No srsly, there’s no justification for not providing official emulators.
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How do you emulate 3D? What is emulated 3D for that matter? If Nintendo were to try selling official emulators for their hardware, it would be kind of pointless to say “Here’s our 3DS emulator…only it doesn’t actually emulate the 3DS. Functionality-wise, you might as well call it a DS emulator”.
Also what do you mean tablet pcs? Where did I mention them? Do you mean emulate the handhelds on a tablet? If so, you’re forgetting that handhelds have buttons, which tablets generally do not (as far as I can tell, it would be next to impossible to have touch screen controls correspond to different buttons. How would the software know that when you touch the screen, you mean to press A, B, or the triggers?)
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Becuae the 3DS totally doesn’t have better graphics capabilities right?
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I’m afraid you’ve lost me. Where did I mention or hint to graphics capabilities?
If it’s the “you might as well call it a DS emulator”, that would be if someone were to try emulating a 3DS on PC, only to encounter the features that (more or less) can’t be emulated. Strip them away (3D, 3D camera, Built in gyroscope, motion sensor and GPS,) and at that point, you basically have a DS emulator (if we ignore the fact a 3DS does have a faster processor and better graphics).
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DSemu allows you to emulate features like tilt and even blowing sounds for the microphone with certain buttons.
So… it’s been done. I used it to play the original Phoenix Wright game as it was unobtainable for me, as well as a few JP only titles with fan translations to english.
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“How do you emulate 3D?”
Red/blue. The Dolphin emulator for Wii does this to turn 2D games like Mario Kart and Super Mario Galaxy into 3D on the emulator.
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Huh. Didn’t know that. Looked it up on Youtube and found this, someone emulating Skyward Sword in 3D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t77t4-MWSm0
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Tablet pcs can emulate mobile consoles and have the same mobility, cameras etc. Also, have you ever run an emulator in a mobile device? I’m currently playing Final Fantasy VII on my Galaxy S3. The buttons are drawn on the screen (but I did find a way to make several types of wireless controllers work with the emulators). Not the best thing but it’s enough for me. A larger screen can emulate both DS screens and draw the buttons in the sides. Any half-assed tablet nowadays supports multi-touching.
As for 3D I’ve seen some equipment that try to make the image in 2D feel like it’s 3D. But really, do you care if it’s 3D or not? Even if they can’t emulate the 3D they can still emulate the game itself. 3D is just a perk, if I want it I’ll buy the console or a 3D enabled computer and LG has some 3D cell phones that have natural 3D like the console. (I despise 3D, it gives me headaches so I actively keep a distance from 3D gadgets).
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I haven’t emulated on a mobile device, since the only tablet I have is a crap one worth less than a hundred quid that I bought merely for the sake of novelty, to see what using Android was like. My roomie does have an iPad but apart from connecting it to our Wifi, I’ve never used it. And that is the sum total of my experience with tablets. I hereby plead ignorance on what I said about tablet emulation: I never considered drawing the buttons on the side of the screen.
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Imagine trying to emulate the 3DS’s 3D camera and trying to play an AR game. What are you going to do: connect two webcams via USB, then hold them both really close to each other while holding a separate joypad (while not being able to see anything, cause you’re moving around and not facing a display).
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Some games naturally won’t function without 3D.
I would imagine this is something like .1% of titles though, especially since the 3DS allows you to TURN OFF the 3D if you so choose.
This isn’t talking about all the whiz bits and gimmicks that come with a real 3DS, just the ability to play games.
Heck, emulation can come with extras, for example ZSNES allows you to play online with friends. We’ve used that to two player through old games like Secret of Mana and others.
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Then they could just offer non AR games for PC
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Really? I play those things on PC easy enough, I even have a big huge tablet I use to draw with that could VERY easily function as a gigantic touch screen if I wanted to emulate a DS game, complete with side buttons.
I never cared for the 3D aspect myself anyways.
I already own them on my DS, which is unfortunately dead (it got broken in half from use), but until certain games I really want on 3DS come out, I can’t justify dropping the money for it at this time.
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“I never got why companies never sold a legal emulator, with legal roms of their games on PC.”
I’m not sure about other companies, but Nintendo took a long time to come around to the viability of emulators. They mostly ignored them, apart from a few legal battles, largely considering the game titles unsaleable or uninteresting to modern audiences.
Now they’ve come around to it, they don’t want you playing on your PC. They want you to buy their new console and use the app there to buy overpriced emulated games. Which, IIRC, are not transferrable to your new consoles next time you upgrade.
With other companies, it seems to be a grab bag. There have been collections of Megadrive, Dreamcast and other games, but you get what you’re given at full price, you don’t get to choose a few favourite for a couple of bucks. On top of that, the legal issues with copyrights owned by companies that stopped existing 20 years ago probably cause problems (witness Crazy Taxi, nowhere near as enjoyable after they were forced to change the soundtrack for the 360 port).
“Give us a legal option and many like myself will buy.”
This should be hammered into any company that complains about piracy. Is there a legal option, available to everybody no matter where they are? No? Stop bitching and work on letting people buy legally.
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regarding the no transfeer to the new console at leats thats false this generations as far as i know you can transfer your games from wii to wii u( this i know is true, it has some issues transfering but i have seen post it can be done ) and ds to 3ds (not to sure about it but think is posible xd )
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OK, I didn’t have time to fact check my comment, so apologies if I got the wrong idea. I was going off my memory of some complaints at the time since I don’t own a Wii U, so glad to hear it should be possible in some way.
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i think thats because the official emulator is in thier hardware meaning you need to buy either a 3ds or wii u to play a officila emulator in case of nintendo, sony is doing the same with regards to emulation selling virtual console games, so yeah you need to buy their hardware if you want it legally xd
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Actually, SEGA has already done just that and has put around 50 Genesis games on PC via Steam (search for “Sega Genesis Classics”).
Nintendo also sells ROMS playable on a Wii/Wii U/3DS which they call “Virtual Console”, which is kind of hypocritical given their above statements.
Sony, in addition, has made a number of PS1/PS2 titles available to download through PSN, these games are emulated as well.
Additionally, any time a publisher releases a collection of old 8/16 bit games, you can be certain they are being emulated. Console makers seem to have no problems with emulation when they use it to cash in on old games.
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“Sony, in addition, has made a number of PS1/PS2 titles available to download through PSN, these games are emulated as well.”
Which is another reason I despise Sony. If I pop in a PS2 game disc into my Slim PS3, it won’t work. Should I download the game from PSN, voila! It does. And we were told all along that the PS3 can’t do software emulation of PS2 games…
Welcome to the singularity
“The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software “
BZZZZZZZZZT WRONG. Emulators are created to emulate software. You can buy a legitimate copy of the software for use with an emulator.
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Correction: they are created to emulate hardware.
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They didn’t say anything about what emulators in general were created for. They said emulators created for the purpose of playing illegally copied Nintendo software is blah blah blah. They don’t say anything about emulators in general, nor do they say anything about emulators created to play non Nintendo software, and nor do they say anything about emulators created to emulate Nintendo hardware for the purpose of running custom software that runs on Nintendo hardware. Also of note: they aren’t saying anything about emulators created to play legally copied Nintendo software.
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“They didn’t say anything about what emulators in general were created for.”
Yes, they did.
“emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software”
And this is completely false. Not sure what part is confusing to you.
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“emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software”
If it’s rephrased slightly to
“emulators that were created in order to play illegally copied Nintendo software” does it make more sense? You can see now that he’s talking not about emulators in general but about emulators whose creators have in mind illegally copied Nintendo games?
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Except that’s a ridiculous distinction that depends on guessing the motives of the developers. There’s no technical difference between an emulator created to play illegal copies and one made to play legal copies or homebrew software, except whatever was in the mind of the developer when they created it. The end result is the same.
It’s just another ridiculous attempt to skew language in order to get a more emotional reaction out of people so they support Nintendo’s position – as per the **AAs trying to use the word theft to get a more emotional reaction, etc.
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Except that’s a ridiculous distinction that depends on guessing the motives of the developers.
I agree it’s manipulative and makes little sense, but that is what he was saying.
“The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software”
What about the ones created to play legally copied software? Oh wait, they’re exactly the same emulators. Nintendo just don’t like them because it stops them being able to charge people a ridiculous amount of money to play games they already own, either now or in the future. On pre-approved hardware they make extra profit from, of course, not on the hardware the player already owns.
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Each emulator is different…just because they emulate the same software doesn’t mean that emulators are all coded the same…ZSNES for instance is coded in C+…..SNES9x uses GTK+….FCE Ultra uses BASIC…NESTopia uses C+.
Also…after seeing that the only difference in the PS1 and SNES versions of Chrono Trigger (in code) was a simple interpreter..one could surmise that that it isn’t one bit hypocritical to use one’s own code to emulate older software platforms.
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What he means is that emulators can be used with both illegal as well as legal software. The emulator doesn’t care what software you’re using. Just like any other system.
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Well, you completely missed my point…
The point is that ZSNES, for example, can be used to play perfectly legal copies of games that I own. It can also be used equally as well to play pirated games. Nintendo would like us to believe that this means ZSNES is immoral or illegal. I disagree. The emulator is the same whether or not it’s used for legal purposes.
I haven’t got a clue how you managed to twist that into meaning that the programming languages used to create the emulators are the same, but you do tend to go off on strange tangents when talking about technical details.
You just admitted the basis of copyright:
“Ghosh may have a legitimate claim that his post is being scraped” — YUP, that’s by the common law right to control copies of what you’ve created, or at least get due attribution.
But you won’t see the humor in the admission that copyright is valid on a site where Mike and minions argue to destroy it!
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
We don’t need to destroy it, just make it suck a little less hard.
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
You don’t know what common law is do you?
Nor do you know that copyright doesn’t require attribution, do you?
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
Do you see the irony in the fact that in defending the blogger with your usual lies about this site, you’re actually supporting someone who helps people bypass copyright?
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
Also, common law is for things that are not legislated. You are thinking of Civil law.
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
In 1834 the Supreme Court ruled in Wheaton v. Peters (a case similar to the British Donaldson v Beckett of 1774) that although the author of an unpublished work had a common law right to control the first publication of that work, the author did not have a common law right to control reproduction following the first publication of the work.
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
You keep repeating this lie about common law copyright when it is demonstrably false. Stop it
Re: Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
You keep repeating this lie about common law copyright when it is demonstrably false. Stop it
He won’t stop. Blue has been bestowed with this wonderful gift of willful ignorance when it comes to anyone countering him with facts. If he simply ignores any counter-arguments to his statements, then it’s like they never existed and he continues on his merry way. Kind of like the not-so-bright cat who thinks if it doesn’t look at you, you can’t see it.
It keeps his life simple, I guess, but it undermines everything he posts here. I’ve gotten to the point where I simply toss everything he says right into the bullshit pile.
Karl rebutted his “common law copyright” theory here:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130412/16073622693/julie-samuels-favorite-techdirt-posts-week.shtml#c618
And still he keeps tossing that theory out like it’s the gospel truth, Crazy.
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
But you won’t see the humor in the admission that copyright is valid on a site where Mike and minions argue to destroy it!
Having a legitimate claim under some distorted, bad law doesn’t invalidate the criticism directed towards it. But the law is the law, right ootb?
And while there are those among TD readers that advocate total abolition of copyright there are also those who defend a more balanced version and in my view TD staff are in this second group as well. It’s just that you don’t accept anything that’s not extreme, black or white thus you don’t understand those who do.
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I also happen to want a more balanced version of copyright law.
Re: You just admitted the basis of copyright:
“But you won’t see the humor in the admission that copyright is valid on a site where Mike and minions argue to destroy it!”
Ghosh’s post is covered automatically by copyright. Everyone knows that. It’s not an endorsement or criticism of copyright, it’s a statement of fact.
No surprise you see humour where there is none. ‘Crazy person laughs out loud at nothing’ is hardly newsworthy.
Nintendo may not like emulation, but that doesn’t mean format shifting is infringment. It’s certainly legal in some places at least, making the irony non-existent.
Some folk think their every utterance is protected by copyright...
This is as if when I say “every word I write is protected by copyright”, that I have such protections on each word by itself… Ok. I now claim copyright on the words “every”, “word”, “I”, “write”, “is”, “protected”, “by”, and “copyright”….
Re: Some folk think their every utterance is protected by copyright...
That “is” the problem created “by” the lack of specifics relating to de minimus on “copyright”. “I” might be able to “write” the words you write separately without you being able to claim that they are “protected”, but if I write “every” “word” of your post…
Copyright is just not sensible in the age of the internet without significant international quantitative specifications.
entertainment purposes only
“this guide is only for entertainment purpose”
Sure, and this pornographic video is just for ‘educational’ purposes only.
Yo
“Yo dawg, I heard you like infringement.”
Nintendo’s post regarding emulators being illegal is FUD. Emulators that don’t contain any of the original system’s copyrighted code in the final product (ie. most emulators for classic systems) are perfectly legal in the US according to the ruling in the Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corporation case.
Things get a bit more tricky when it comes to copying the game software, but some arguments for legitimacy can be made if you’re using a genuine copy as your source. In most personal use situations, it would probably fit well within the provisions of 17 USC ? 117 (a) (1), since the copying that is done is obviously a necessary step in utilizing the program with a machine (ie. your PC).
I also doubt DMCA would impede this for most classic systems, since most lock-out systems from the early days (ie. NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, Genesis) were designed to lock you out of the SYSTEM not the GAMES. While this might seem to be a moot point, existing case law has indicated that a protection measure has to block the type of access you are trying to achieve and has to do so effectively for DMCA to apply. From Lexmark Int’l v. Static Control Components, Inc.:
“Because the statute refers to “control[ling] access to a work protected under this title,” it does not naturally apply when the “work protected under this title” is otherwise accessible. Just as one would not say that a lock on the back door of a house “controls access” to a house whose front door does not contain a lock and just as one would not say that a lock on any door of a house “controls access” to the house after its purchaser receives the key to the lock, it does not make sense to say that this provision of the DMCA applies to otherwise-readily-accessible copyrighted works. Add to this the fact that the DMCA not only requires the technological measure to “control[] access” but also requires the measure to control that access “effectively,” 17 U.S.C. ? 1201(a)(2), and it seems clear that this provision does not naturally extend to a technological measure that restricts one form of access but leaves another route wide open.”
Make of it what you will, but I think that there’s a pretty solid argument to be made that ripping your cartridges for most classic systems and playing the software on an emulator is perfectly legal under US case law, which means that there is a valid use for emulation, even for games that received official releases.
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Emulation is…at best…grey legally because one can file a copyright on ROM dumps pertain to making computers run…Apple did this with Pre-OSX Mac OS systems. Each computer until Mac OS8 came out…had an EPPROM that contained the system identifier (Gestalt ID), and Some form of the QuickDraw/Color QuickDraw/QuickDraw32/QuickDraw 3D API’s (depending on the system).
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Some forms of on-board code such as a BIOS can be copyrighted, but it’s legal for an emu developer to dump such code to figure out how it works and then create original programs to emulate or work around it (as long as the actual BIOS code is not included in the final released emulator). If the emulator can be made to work without the actual copyrighted BIOS, then it’s all in the clear. That’s a big chunk of what Sony v. Connectix was about, which relied on the findings of the much earlier Sega v. Accolade. Such dumping to create a compatible program is even allowed in the DMCA under the Reverse Engineering Provision, even if the program is otherwise protected by a protection measure.
A lot of classic game systems (NES, SNES) don’t have a BIOS, so this wouldn’t apply for those systems anyway.
I can understand Nintendo’s stance on pirated software for their current devices…which happen to be the DS handhelds…good luck copying WiiU discs…it’s physically impossible… I can’t recall Nintendo complaining about ROM’s and SNES emulation though as those aren’t all that current. And most ROM’s are covered by certain preservation clauses in the US Copyright act allow them to exist in the legal grey.
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Physically impossible….until some does it
So, if Ghosh succeeds in getting those infringing posts taken down, then his work must not be worth having online. It obviously failed to teach anyone an effective method for infringing!
All things considered, the article in question pretty much leaves itself outside of any previously mentioned legal exceptions. He tells you to download code which is legally questionable. If he said “here’s how to get the BIOS code off or your own genuine DS to run the emulator” that would be one thing, but “Google it” is hardly the same thing.
Whether that distinction seems stupid and hopelessly behind the times is another matter.
Stop fucking with this phone n w.. this person fucking punk..