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Nintendo Upset Over Nokia Game Emulation Video
An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo is investigating potential copyright infringement by Nokia during some video demos of their N900 phone, which can be seen emulating Nintendo games. Nintendo spokesman Robert Saunders says: 'We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place.' In the video, Nokia says, 'Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title.'"
Look in the back of the instructional manual for your old Nintendo games. I remember that SNES games (and probably others up until the Gamecube) allowed you to make "one backup copy for archival purposes", or something to that effect.
Two caveats here:
I don't remember the exact wording, but I'm pretty sure "make" implied ripping the cartridges yourself, not downloading them from a ROM site.
Also, playing the game on your phone doesn't seem like an "archival purpose" to me.
"Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title."
This might explain why their platforms failed so much (well, other than side-talking and whatnot). I have not really heard of any major publisher that allows copies of their titles (disregarding software officially released free) so I don't know who gave Nokia that info.
Not to mention this is NINTENDO. If there's a single game company who is most likely to oppose emulation, it's Nintendo.
It's worth pointing out that Nintendo merely wants to find out if infringement occurred - they're almost certainly as aware as every other game company that emulation is legal. It's quite possible, however, that there was indeed some copyright infringement, such as in acquiring the game, and they want to be sure that their competitors are playing by the book.
This is reasonable, in my opinion.
How many Mario clones have been made using flash/java web applications this last decade alone? Answer: 2.35 * 10 ^ 34
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#roms
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.
What Does Nintendo Think of the Argument that Emulators are Actually Good for Nintendo Because it Promotes the Nintendo Brand to PC Users and Leads to More Sales?
Distribution of an emulator developed to play illegally copied Nintendo software hurts Nintendo's goodwill, the millions of dollars invested in research & development and marketing by Nintendo and its licensees. Substantial damages are caused to Nintendo and its licensees. It is irrelevant whether or not someone profits from the distribution of an emulator. The emulator promotes the play of illegal ROMs , NOT authentic games. Thus, not only does it not lead to more sales, it has the opposite effect and purpose.
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.
People Making Nintendo Emulators and Nintendo ROMs are Helping Publishers by Making Old Games Available that are No Longer Being Sold by the Copyright Owner. This Does Not Hurt Anyone and Allows Gamers to Play Old Favorites. What's the Problem?
The problem is that it's illegal. Copyrights and trademarks of games are corporate assets. If these vintage titles are available far and wide, it undermines the value of this intellectual property and adversely affects the right owner. In addition, the assumption that the games involved are vintage or nostalgia games is incorrect. Nintendo is famous for bringing back to life its popular characters for its newer systems, for example, Mario and Donkey Kong have enjoyed their adventures on all Nintendo platforms, going from coin-op machines to our latest hardware platforms. As a copyright owner, and creator of such famous characters, only Nintendo has the right to benefit from such valuable assets.
How many copies have been made using computers this last decade alone?
I really don't care what most publishers says, I only care about what the laws in my country says. That's what matters, unless you live in some place where the publishers owns the government and make their own laws (or licenses that supersedes the law). And in my country I have every right to play what I own on any device I feel like.
(don't know for how long though, given the current copyright jihad.)
Either start selling copies of these roms (or licenses to play them) on your website or shut the hell up. You're not losing profit on games for consoles which are 3 and 4 generations obsolete if you're not selling new copies of those games. Charging people say $1, $2 a pop to download 1meg roms off your site would have a pretty damn high profit margin I think.
There's a company that made commercial console emulators for Nokia Series 60 phones:
Vampent - http://vampent.com
Their products are: VNES = NES Emulator
VBOY = Gameboy Color Emulator
VSUN = SNES Emulator
VBAG/VBAGX = Gameboy Advance Emulator
http://www.object404.com
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.
They're right that it's not open to debate. Piracy is going to happen, and there's absolutely nothing Nintendo or anyone else can do about it. They can accept that, and find a way to profit from it, or turn away people who want to be paying customers.
So Nokia may not be doing anything legally wrong, but they're threatening the concept of infinite copyright, which justifies what you imply to be a frivolous lawsuit?
I've seen reasoning that insane before, but rarely are the failures in it so explicit.
True, it was kind of dumb that Nokia demonstrated something in a video that was obviously in violation of copyright. However, Nintendo hasn't been supporting those systems for what, like a decade now? There was a large generation of people (myself included) who preferred the classic NES or SNES over today's consoles.
This video demonstrated that there still is a market for the work that Nintendo did over 10 years ago, and they should pursue a strategy with Nokia to monetize that if they're so concerned.
Nokia Corporation is three times as large as Nintendo by revenue and assets, although Nokia's market cap is only 50 % larger.
what you imply to be a frivolous lawsuit?
That is *exactly* what I am saying - if they actually did it.
I don't think Nintendo would be stupid enough to start some sort of legal proceedings but I think Nokia took at unnecessary risk but *offically* and *actively* promoting a video that basically said "Look Nintendo - our hardware can run your computer games" - the video even has a "Nokia.com" watermark over it.
I think to risk the time, effort and money in marketing and developing the N900 over something as "legally charged" like this is insane.
Realisticly, Nintendo will probably do nothing maybe issue a stern warning or something.
But then again it comes down to "common-sense" which everyone knows are "amply abundant" in corporate law and motivations behind many lawsuits.
...can be one of the most effective advertising.
Ceterum censeo Microsoft esse delendam.
I don't remember if I've seen the video in question, but I think it has just been a human mistake, not their marketing department plan to promote the device with nintendo game, otherwise it would have most likely been pointed out by the legal department. Hopefully they can just apologize and possibly pay a small fine to Nintendo and be done with it.
What comes to emulation itself, I think there is lot of potential for emulation of dead platforms in general, but Nintendos old systems are not among them. They just are too zealous about their products and just like all console manufacturers they want to keep as much of the games as possible exclusively on their consoles to increase their consoles attraction. So there is no sense for Nintendo to start supplying ROMs to competitors devices, when people know they can access those games if theyl buy DS or Wii. After all, they are in business for money, not to make everybody happy.
On the other hand there are many other platforms like Sega perhaps and old computers such as C64 or Amiga. Even some DOS games would run nicely with DOSBox or ScummVM. If there was a legal and easy way for users to download these for various devices such as iPhone, Android, S60 or Maemo, that would most likely make lot of money to the copyright owners ( if those can still be found..) with little effort and people wouldn't have to piratise them.
Hey look, Think Geek (a sister company to Slashdot) is doing exactly the same with this product. The video for that item demonstrates piracy in action.
And if you think that it's okay because of the "nudge, nudge, wink" attitude - consider how incredibly hypocritical that is when there's a copyright notice at the bottom of every GeekNet page (including this one.) Clearly they think that copyright laws apply to other people, but not themselves.
I would gladly pay for any app that would let me run something similar to the Pokemon DS/DSi games on the iPhone. I had high hopes for the DS emulator on the iPhone, but it did not allow one to run any real DS game roms on it, and Apple immediately yanked it off the app store soon after it was released.
Maybe, the authors of the DS emulator would eventually consider putting a non-crippled version of their DS emulator onto the Cydia store. Or better yet, maybe Nintendo might release their games to the iPhone/iTouch platform, since they are no longer interested in making any non-trival (DS, DS Lite, DSi, ...) changes to their existing outdated handheld gaming platform in more than 5 years since the original DS was launched in Nov 2004.
Definitely worth a few bucks to avoid having to carry separate Nintendo game and Apple phone devices for my Pokemon fix.
Better start laying into Murat Fayazallin for writing the best Nintendo NES/Gameboy emus. Better start going after GamePark holdings for having emus in their adverts!
What a crock! Just 'cos it's Nokia and everyone has heard of them!
What does Nintendo get out of this? Probably nothing but a hit on their rep and an apology (maybe) from Nokia. However, Nintendo making a big fuss about this is a goldmine of free publicity for Nokia.. Nintendo angry because a Nokia phone that can do a lot of stuff can also emulate their legacy games? Good for Nokia :)
I don't understand why Nintendo doesn't leverage the emulator market in their favor. The source is open, perhaps they could improve it to run more roms perfectly and open a rom store. If the pricepoint was right, say $1.49 or $1.99, they could probably do pretty well. These games along with the save state feature would be perfect for mobile phones because you could jump back in the game right where you left off.
"Copying of any Nintendo game is illegal and is strictly prohibited by domestic and international intellectual property laws. "Back-up" or "archival" copies are not authorized and are not necessary to protect your software.
Emphasis added.
Is that a written guarantee that no 7-year-old kid could possibly manage to destroy a game disk?
I lost my sig.
That article's Q&A format is quite funny. It has good questions, and then they're all answered with "IT'S ILLEGAL, IT'S ILLEGAL, IT'S ILLEGAL GODDAMMIT!!! Also, $corporate_fluff_pity_speech." Reminds me of John McCain's debate style - "HE'S GONNA RAISE TAXES!!! Also, $argument_for_smaller_government."
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That is *exactly* what I am saying - if they actually did it.
Then stop saying it. It makes you sound stupid. Everyone can toss out improbable scenarios, but you're actually advocating on making important business decisions on something exceedingly unlikely to happen, and even further, claiming that not doing so is BRAINDEAD? Jeez.
IF your imagination would shape the world and Nintendo actually was the bigger one, sure, they just might do it, even though they know they don't have a case, but since like the other AC said, Nokia has three times deeper pockets, Nintendo will do squat. Nada. Zilch. There's nothing in it for them, and a whole lot to lose, they could very well establish a high profile court case that deems emulation perfectly legal...
All this talk of sharing makes me think you must be a dick-sucking commie faggot.
Here in America, this is how we roll: I'll take whatever I want because your little bitch-ass can't stop me.
It worked on Afghanistan, worked on Iraq, and it will work on Iran and Nintendo.
Yours In World Domination,
G. W. Bush
The thing is some countries have copyright laws that explicitly allow copying for backup purposes.
And some countries (like Switzerland) even have their local clone of DMCA containing an exception giving authorisation to break encryption/protection if it stays in the way, as long as you're only making copies which abid the "fair use" exception of copyright law.
Back to the current case :
There's basically nothing wrong in what Nokia did in most jurisdiction - as long as the salesperson or someone else at Nokia *bought* said nintendo game cartridge.
The person made (or obtained) a copy - which *was not* given to other people. It's considered as a *private copy* destined only for the *private usage* of the original owner - something falling under the "fair use" of most jurisdictions' copyright law. The copyright law would have been infringed if Nokia subsequently distributed/sold or otherwise made those copy available.
But that's not the case, the copy was used by the original owner, although not in the original equipment for which it was intended for - but that has nothing to do with copyright law (except in some country like the US with its broken DMCA law, if there's some encryption involved in the process).
Also, the usage of the game it self was within a demo and should fall again under the citation part of "fair use".
(Unlike say, for example, recording absolutely all audio & graphical assets of the game and releasing them as a video without clearing broadcast rights-related problem first - but that's more commonly a problem associated with public display of *movies* not public display of *games*)
The only thing that Nintendo is pissed about is the effect of this demo on their public image, and there isn't much they can do about this -specially not with the copyright law.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In Europe, there are countries (Germany, for example) that explicitly allow back-up copies.
IMO, Nintendo's rules don't apply in such countries.
Non-supporter of Online Activation and any other draconian DRM
I can tell you from personal experience that half the friends I know with Nintendo DS consoles have only bought on cartridge for it: The "R4" device that lets you, among other things, download illegal copies of games so you don't have to pay for them.
Of course, that's just because they want foreign games, right? Right?
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
What if Nintendo decided to pursue this legally?
They'd lose. Making copies of games you own is legal if it's necessary in order to run it on a machine.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Are you really that concerned about games you haven't made a dime on in 15 years? Whether the law is on your side or not, you're just being bitches.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Good luck applying an English patch to your original Mother 3 cartridge.
First buy a DS Lite, a SLOT-1 microSD adapter such as CycloDS Evolution, and a SLOT-2 flash card. On a microSD card, install a dump and patch program. Then under 17 USC 117 (backup/adaptation defense applicable in the United States), you can dump your authentic Mother 3 Game Pak, patch it, and write out the patched version to the SLOT-2 card. Voila: English Mother 3.
That seems rather counterintuitive. The people downloading ROMs are going to be heavily weighted toward those who bought the cartridges at some point and want to revisit them.
Though it is for some, certainly. Why should Nintendo (or anyone else) care one way or another about those people?
Why spite the people who have a non-zero price point in some sort of misguided revenge on people who won't pay (but will pirate regardless)?
Thank you for pointing that device out. Not only does it play audio and video, but it also functions as an ebook reader, apparently with text2speech. (I can take Project Gutenburg with me.) It looks like it isn't locked down, so you can write your own games for the device too. (Maybe it'll encourage me to finally work at it.)
It runs C/OS-II, never tried it, but probably isn't any worse than Linux. In fact, it appears to be certified for medical / critical use, so it is probably really stable, and they seem to like hobbyists too.
Wikipedia - Official page? - review from a site called "green head" - buy it at thinkgeek, support slashdot! ;-)
>Also the release of the N900 was supposed to be at the end of October then delayed over three times (now 4th December) - people pre-ordered it in October (expecting it at the end of the October) and just maybe will get the phone this week - it's the first week of December - *if* you pre-ordered early!
Strange, I ordered an N900 5 days ago from nokia.co.uk and it arrived yesterday. Four days from purchase. Exaggerate much?