Nintendo is back at it again

[Datrat]

UPDATE:

  

Nintendo chose VIOLENCE with a nuclear warhead. As per usual abusing copyright to scare content creators into submission. They issued 2 copyright strikes. striking down 4 videos, 1 video in one strike, and 3 in the other, putting Pointcrow's channel in Jeopardy. He gives a detailed description that would take an eternity to write out without some AI tool to transcribe it. Hopefully this makes it in WAN for another Nvidia beat down esque rant.

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

Pointcrow, a YouTube creator known most recently for a variety of modded challenges in Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (BOTW), and a variety of other miscellaneous content has been struck with the Nintendo censorship hammer. He has been posting content involving modded BOTW for over 2 years, but after just releasing the BOTW multiplayer mod he aided in developing, Nintendo has cracked down on one of the people keeping BOTW content alive and fresh. Nintendo blocked the videos down based on "Copyright grounds"

 

Quotes

 

Pointcrow's community post on YouTube:

Quote

Incredibly disappointed that Nintendo has decided to block some of my videos on Breath of the Wild. It’s the love for the community and the innovation of the game that has kept it alive all these years. From what I know, videos like these have brought a staggering amount of new people to love the Zelda series and get excited about future releases. Posting here so you all know why you are now unable to see these videos. It’s incredibly discouraging to see creativity stifled in a game that embraces creativity. I hope they reverse the decision soon.

 

My thoughts

This company sucks, I hate them, but people will still buy from them no matter how far they go to keep their precious games out of "evil hacker's" hands.

 

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxxMRRLSSOcM1J1jOtT1mKfuOdwRemBlg3

 

Edit: https://youtu.be/FSZYpDk9Xm8

 

[johnno23]

Without such creators many older games would have simply been laid to rest by many companies.

Nintendo have a warped attitude imo as some old games that are no longer supported that modders etc try to keep alive are not being shown some love Nintendo reacts with a hammer and the mindset of people playing the older games are not buying the new ones.

 

[suicidalfranco]

What did you expect would happen after Pokemon Uranium and AM2R

Nintendo hates the gaming community and only sees it has their piggy bank, their as bad as Konami. Never understood why people give them a pass on everything they do.

[tikker]

I understand his sentiment, but games are copyrighted material. I agree with the point that it is dumb that there are no or few official ways to get old titles, for example, but as far as I understand there are also legal implications if Nintendo does not claim its copyright on things

 

As I expected the fair use argument makes its appearance:

Quote

Update: I have appealed these claims. As of now, they are still visible for you to watch -- however, they are not monetized. Hopefully Nintendo releases these claims, as I significantly transform their work and my videos are under fair use.

 

Argueing a little bit as the devil's advocate perhaps: does adding a multiplayer mode count as "significantly transform"? Does "every time I press A Link grows" significantly transform the game? It's the same game, "just" with multiplayer or some other feature added while using assets that Nintendo owns the copyright to. Without Nintendo's permission you don't have any rights to use the game or its material. Then there is the additional issue that the videos are monetised, so money is being made off of IP that isn't theirs and that they have no rights to (assuming from the claims). Finally, what if Nintendo decided (or had already planned but not anounced) to add multiplayer to BotW? Would they be infringing on the multiplayer mod? The majority of the community probably wouldn't have an issue with mods getting officially implemented, but I could image that that pulls on a tricky legal thread as well.

 

I'm not saying Nintendo is the greatest, but as far as I understand copyright law at the end of the day this is copyright infringement and Nintendo is one that aggressively exercises that right.

[Levent]

Dealing with Nintendo is like dealing with a terrorist organization, you just dont.

[Kisai]

7 hours ago, tikker said:

Argueing a little bit as the devil's advocate perhaps: does adding a multiplayer mode count as "significantly transform"? Does "every time I press A Link grows" significantly transform the game? It's the same game, "just" with multiplayer or some other feature added while using assets that Nintendo owns the copyright to.

The problem is you need a pirate copy of the game to use mods for Nintendo games. next-to-zero people have the hardware to dump their own games.

 

The people who do have the hardware and expertise, are not stupid enough to brag about it and give Nintendo a reason to come after it. If you are playing a pirate copy of a game (which again, all modded/fan-translated Nintendo games are), on youtube, twitch, etc. Nintendo will come after you.

 

Like if you're going to play something modded, you better damn well show you doing the modding process before you ever show any footage of it. Same with if you have the physical game for a legacy console. If you don't show you have the original console and game working before hand, any footage of running it on an emulator will be assumed to be from a pirate copy.

[Remixt]

I hate Nintendo and their anti-customer anti-consumerness. Unfortunately they have a vice grip on the market when it comes to their big IP's and nothing will change until customers stop buying their stuff. 

[sof006]

Since Nintendo has turned into this anti-consumer company I refuse to purchase any of their products. I miss the old Nintendo, now they just alienate their consumers.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

The problem is you need a pirate copy of the game to use mods for Nintendo games. next-to-zero people have the hardware to dump their own games.

 

The people who do have the hardware and expertise, are not stupid enough to brag about it and give Nintendo a reason to come after it. If you are playing a pirate copy of a game (which again, all modded/fan-translated Nintendo games are), on youtube, twitch, etc. Nintendo will come after you.

 

Like if you're going to play something modded, you better damn well show you doing the modding process before you ever show any footage of it. Same with if you have the physical game for a legacy console. If you don't show you have the original console and game working before hand, any footage of running it on an emulator will be assumed to be from a pirate copy.

Good point. I hadn't considered that aspect of things yet.

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

pirate copy

Well if its an EOL console and the game arent sold anymore TBH at that point it isnt piracy and shouldnt be treated as such..... Just imagine if suddenly dosbox would get nuked for the same BS reason.....

[tikker]

4 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Well if its an EOL console and the game arent sold anymore TBH at that point it isnt piracy and shouldnt be treated as such..... Just imagine if suddenly dosbox would get nuked for the same BS reason.....

But DOSBox is a DOS emulator and to my knowledge emulation is legal. Pirating a copy of a game, or actual DOS would be a different story.

[jagdtigger]

16 minutes ago, tikker said:

But DOSBox is a DOS emulator and to my knowledge emulation is legal.

They dont seem to care.....

[tikker]

20 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

They dont seem to care.....

That's a different thing than e.g. nuking DOSBox as you put it. They're not going after the emulators or their developers themselves. They seem to be complying with a request from Nintendo (willingly or not). Microsoft could have said no and waited for Nintendo to take them to court, or maybe they already did, the news is rather sparse surrounding that. All we know about that article is the mentioned "legal issues with Nintendo". That, and the usual difference between "it is legal" not meaning everyone has to allow you to do that on their platform. I do agree that the piracy aspect around emulation would probably be easily resolved if they kept legal ways to obtain older games.

[jagdtigger]

13 minutes ago, tikker said:

That's a different thing than e.g. nuking DOSBox as you put it.

Can use those emulators on an xbox or not? If not then "getting nuked" is a pretty accurate term because of the closed ecosystem.......

[tikker]

19 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Can use those emulators on an xbox or not? If not then "getting nuked" is a pretty accurate term because of the closed ecosystem.......

Yes, developer mode is still unaffected according to the MSN article. But is it your fundamental right to be able to use those emulators on an Xbox? Yes that's one of those "their platform their rules" arguments. I think @Kisai raised a fair point regarding a core legal issue being piracy. I think that when it comes to console emulation legally obtained ROMs are the minority to say the least and that both users and developers/publisher are fully aware of that. The fact that it is so hard to legally obtain a copy for emulation then exacerbates the problem of emulation probably involving piracy. Should Microsoft not have the right to block something from their platform, let alone something that is likely to involve illegal activity?

[Eaglerino]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Well if its an EOL console and the game arent sold anymore TBH at that point it isnt piracy and shouldnt be treated as such..... Just imagine if suddenly dosbox would get nuked for the same BS reason.....

It is by legal definition piracy to play an emulated ROM from any company that the company did not sell you.

 

Sure, would it be better for Nintendo to release an official emulator software and ROM store that everyone can buy? Of course, but it's not gonna happen.

 

Nintendo has and always will be protective of their IP. You would be too if yours was as valuable as theirs.

[Dirtyshado]

Nintendo relies heavily on its third-party copyright bot provider, their may be no motive behind it.

It may have nothing to do with modding... Just an update to the copyright bot (since BOTW2 teasers/trailers are now out) and that it flagged his videos for any random thing.

 

Nintendo's bot does tend to be aggressive when a new game is about to release and does relie on whitelists of media/influencers etc, which I am guessing he is not on.

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, tikker said:

Yes, developer mode is still unaffected according to the MSN article. But is it your fundamental right to be able to use those emulators on an Xbox? Yes that's one of those "their platform their rules" arguments. I think @Kisai raised a fair point regarding a core legal issue being piracy. I think that when it comes to console emulation legally obtained ROMs are the minority to say the least and that both users and developers/publisher are fully aware of that. The fact that it is so hard to legally obtain a copy for emulation then exacerbates the problem of emulation probably involving piracy. Should Microsoft not have the right to block something from their platform, let alone something that is likely to involve illegal activity?

 

5 hours ago, Eaglerino said:

It is by legal definition piracy to play an emulated ROM from any company that the company did not sell you.

 

Sure, would it be better for Nintendo to release an official emulator software and ROM store that everyone can buy? Of course, but it's not gonna happen.

 

Nintendo has and always will be protective of their IP. You would be too if yours was as valuable as theirs.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot, since people might have a hard time understanding this.

 

I buy a CD, or a DVD. I own a CD or DVD player. I also own a computer that has a DVD drive.

 

From a legal perspective, I am allowed to listen to that CD on a CD player, or the computer with the DVD drive. Nothing more. From a "am I allowed to do that" you can fair-use your way into making a backup of that CD or DVD. Legally, it's been legal to format-shift since 2013 in the US. Meanwhile Canada is backsliding and C-11 makes format shifting illegal.

 

Now should that CD-player stop being made, or the DVD-player break, and my only recourse is to use the computer, I might decide it's time to make a backup copy of all my discs to the PC, and then leave that stuff on an external hard drive, DRM-free so I may access it for the next 20 years on any future PC. 

 

The SmartTV has entered the room.

 

Only specific SmartTV's (eg Korean ones) actually have the capability to play pirated/format-shifted content. The rights owners are outraged and want this ability gone. So you never see it in Japanese SmartTV's. Chinese SmartTV's, oblivious to the needs of Japan or the US, release product after product that plays pirated media, and people buy the Chinese thing ENTIRELY because it can do that. Remember the entire selling point of some of those early Chinese DVD-players selling point was that it was Region-free or Region-0 "which had the intended effect of being able to play pirated/copied DVD's". So Japanese SmartTV's essentially go out of business because nobody will buy their product because it won't let them do what they want to do with it.

 

Games are significantly harder. A SmartTV will not play a Pirated Playstation 4 or Switch game. But you know what can? a PC and other PC-like devices like a PS5 or Xbox Series. So getting emulators in any shape into the Switch/Playstation/Xbox console legitimately without jailbreaking it, opens up the pandora's box of people being able to play pirated rom's off the internet.

 

You can, at no point in time, ever put a Gamecube, or Wii/Wii U Disc, or storage unit (eg all my Wii U games are on an external drive) in your PC and just play it. You must additionally decrypt it.

 

The 3DS and Switch can, kind of do this

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14218/~/how-to-use-microsd-management-to-move-files-between-a-new-nintendo-3ds-xl-and-a

 

https://fr-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/27595/~/how-to-transfer-data-between-microsd-cards-for-use-on-nintendo-switch

 

But you can't simply drag those files to your desktop and open an emulator to play them. The PC can not decrypt them without yet more steps. That is often one step too many, and likewise you can't re-encrypt them to play them on the original console either. 

 

So these emulators do NOT play the encrypted files, last I checked. They can't. They do not have the decryption keys because they do not have the 3DS/WiiU/Switch operating system on them, and the only way to get that is by dumping it from the console which is by no means trivial.

 

So there is no way to operate the emulator legally. It needs the Nintendo OS in order to play legit games, which Nintendo will not let them do, or it can only play decrypted (pirated) copies, which is far from non-trivial for an end user to do.

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

So these emulators do NOT play the encrypted files, last I checked. They can't. They do not have the decryption keys because they do not have the 3DS/WiiU/Switch operating system on them, and the only way to get that is by dumping it from the console which is by no means trivial.

depends on the emulator and game being played.

yuzu requires the decryption keys from your switch for most games while games like mario kart 8 require you to dump the switch firmware for it to work. (link)

hell some emulators like DeSmuME work without needing the DS's firmware and BIOS but melonDS needs those in order to function.

 

as time goes on it will get harder and easier to play these games legally, harder because companies will design ways to require parts of their proprietary code for the game to function, and easier because emulator devs will find ways to recreate that code in a way that isn't illegal.

 

it's been a battle for a very long time and it's not going to go away anytime soon.

[Kisai]

33 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

depends on the emulator and game being played.

 

Yes, however, none of these solutions are simply "load emulator, select SD card/DVD-drive", Even on the Playstation emulator side, which has only ever used CD/DVD/BD discs, that never works (or sometimes works, but few drives work and do it, hence everyone has to rip the disc.)

 

At any rate, the point there is no reason why Nintendo can't sell games in perpetunity other than the cost of physically making things. There is no reason why they had to shut down the e-shop aside from the fact that the DS, 3DS, Wii and WiiU don't support 5Ghz networks or 802.11n/ac/ax etc. They top out at 802.11g on 2.4ghz and the DS only supports WEP. Why can't I just go to the eshop on my windows PC and download the ROM directly to my DS/3DS SD card? 

 

Because they don't want to. You might share that with all your friends. Can't have that.

 

iTunes DRM-free tracks enters the chat. "This is not a problem."

 

Same with Sony. Fine, shut down the online shop the console can download, but you give me a way to download the ISO to the PS3/PS4/PS5 hard drive. Because I bought that game, and you shutting down the store is STEALING that game from me.

 

If you want justification for piracy, shutting down the stores IS stealing the game from people who paid for it.

[Mark Kaine]

7 hours ago, Kisai said:

shutting down the stores IS stealing the game from people who paid for it.

well, uh technically not really? you already have the game its not necessarily the store or publishers fault you lost it.  Are they really required to have a download copy ready for you forever?  (you kinda knew what you get into when buying a "digital" copy didn't you?)

[jagdtigger]

12 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

well, uh technically not really? you already have the game its not necessarily the store or publishers fault you lost it. 

Except you cant have backups AFAIK se yes, its their fault......

[Mark Kaine]

On 4/7/2023 at 8:01 AM, Datrat said:

This company sucks, I hate them, but people will still buy from them no matter how far they go to keep their precious games out of "evil hacker's" hands.

you're completely missing the point, its a yt video so yt is responsible in the first place as its on yt to check and the content "creator" is free to publish on their own platform at any time, blaming Nintendo trying to protect what they think is their property is a weird take to say the least 

[Kisai]

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

well, uh technically not really? you already have the game its not necessarily the store or publishers fault you lost it.  Are they really required to have a download copy ready for you forever?  (you kinda knew what you get into when buying a "digital" copy didn't you?)

If I lose my physical cartridge, that's my fault. If my Wii/WiiU/3DS/Switch dies, and the e-shop is gone, so are my games. So YES. Nintendo is stealing the games from you, and providing you with no way to play the games you purchased, nor any way to download it and play it on something else like an after-market console, a PC, or an emulator on a PS5 or Xbox Series.

 

5 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Except you cant have backups AFAIK se yes, its their fault......

Exactly. If the "digital shop" shuts down, the company should be required to either

a) be required to mail physical copies to all customers

or

b) operate the e-shop in perpetuity

or

c) release a new console with all digital games on it that you can unlock using the current eshop offline.

or

d) refund all purchases ever made for titles discontinued.

or

e) migrate the purchases to a new/alternative shop. Eg, would accept migrating my WiiU purchases to the Switch and whatever comes after the Switch. Nintendo only did this with the Wii to WiiU. But if I have $1000 of epurchases, and the switch is discontinued, I'm sure going to be angry about it. Buy Nintendo's first party game as physical games, because you know they are never going to put it on another platform and steal the digital downloads from you.

 

This is my entire beef with MMORPG's with cash shops, and effectively-solo games that are gacha/lootbox driven as well. You shut that game down, and all those things you spent money on, poof.

 

Like it should be straight up illegal to do this. If you are selling digital downloads, then you should be legally required to maintain that digital shop in perpetuity. If Steam can maintain an e-shop for for 16 years, So can Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

If my Wii/WiiU/3DS/Switch dies, and the e-shop is gone, so are my games. So YES.

So you can't make backups? that seems odd because every other console lets you make backups afaik (be it whole games or whole system) 

 

But even then point still stands you should know that before "purchasing" something... no?

As long this practice is legal its on the consumer to make that decision,  dont support shitty companies  --> problem solved! : )

 

 

 

*edit:  

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

gacha/lootbox driven as well. You shut that game down, and all those things you spent money on, poof.

i feel that's a similar problem but also very different... these lootbox games where you lose everything once servers shutdown should probably really be regulated differently... but the only solution i have is that companies that offer such "services" are never allowed to shut their servers down or offer  an offline solution -- difficult, i just can't see this being regulated in such a way anytime soon .