Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
"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
You must be pretty damn young, then. I remember the machiens for copying NES, SNES, and Genesis carts being very, very common in the late '80s and early '90s. Pretty much every video store that rented games had 'em.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
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.
I checked the book for Mario Paint and the SNES Mario Kart; I didn't see anything obvious one way or the other on this topic. However, systems more recent than that (N64, gamecube and wii) definitely DO have something to say. It actually says the exact opposite of what you suggest:
"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. Violators will be prosecuted."
-Inside front cover of Smash Brothers: Brawl for wii.
They actually manage to make the message even more infuriating by telling outright lies. (Not necessary? Are they seriously implying that their disks can't ever be scratched by anything? Or that an N64 cart can't be killed by ESD?)
So, while they may have once been cool about it, at some point they decided that being jerks was the way to go. It's been this way since N64, so I'm sure the DS games say the same thing.
Note: I looked in the book for Mario Kart 64, and found this exact message there, too. It's possible that third party titles don't have a message this ridiculous. I remember it being in the gamecube manuals, too, but don't have one at hand to check for sure.
"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. Violators will be prosecuted." -Inside front cover of Smash Brothers: Brawl for wii.
I see the same notice in Super Star Wars for the SNES, and Pokemon Yellow manuals. It is older than N64 but I don't have a NES manual handy to see if it older than this.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
The thing is some countries have copyright laws that explicitly allow copying for backup purposes. I'm pretty sure the UK is one of these, pretty certainly for software. Would a SNES cartridge constitute software or firmware and does it make a difference?
Of course Nokia aren't exactly a UK company and they clearly aren't using it for backup purposes, but frankly I don't see anything wrong with what they did (provided they own the actual cartridges).
Who need's speling and grammar?
Precisely. Even more important is that emulators do not themselves constitute copyright infringement (unless they contain a ripped BIOS or the like), nor do they bypass copy protection (that's the job of the game ripper, not the emulator), so Nintendo can do squat about the application itself. At most, Nintendo is pulling a PR move here. The only real claim they have relates to whether some employee at Nokia illegally downloaded games that he does not own for the purposes of this demostration.
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.
Laws always trump the wishful-thinking fine print of corporations. I don't even read what some company wants to tell me, because it's usually bogus.
Germany has even less strict laws in some respect. You are allowed to copy for private purposes, if the copy is made from a legitimate source. That doesn't include spreading it on the internet but making a copy for your friends (real friends not twitter/myspace/facebook "friends"). We even pay a certain amount of money on blank discs, scanners, etc. for this purpose. Funny enough it is not allowed to bypass "effective" copy protection (whatever effective may mean).
No worries though, lobbyists are already bribing politicians to ban this right.
The thing is some countries have copyright laws that explicitly allow copying for backup purposes. I'm pretty sure the UK is one of these, pretty certainly for software.
The US is also one of these. 17 USC 117 applies to any "computer program", even one for a special-purpose computer like a game console.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Nokia Corporation is three times as large as Nintendo by revenue and assets, although Nokia's market cap is only 50 % larger.
The problem is that Nintendo is selling both an emulator for their older consoles (the Wii, via the Virtual Console) and those older games as well. They most likely plan to release a number of games not on the market yet. Essentially, if a game has even been released on a Nintendo platform, they actually expect to sell it until the heat death of the universe or their bankuptcy, whichever comes later.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
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.
Actually it's pretty much been confirmed that Nintendo is working on a new handheld using Tegra technology.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.