Hacker News Reader

Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

Nintendo has a history of getting videos taken down and entire channels suspended that didn't even violate any of those actions you described.

> Specifically don't do anything that can directly enable piracy, such as dumping ROMs or say... trying to organize a Melee tournament using a Dolphin netplay mod.

No offense meant towards you specifically, but if that's Nintendo's mindset then that's complete crap. ROM dumping is not a crime or YouTube content violation, nor is using one for a network tournament.

Imagine a book publisher shutting down a book club on YouTube for discussing their books and sharing excerpts. Most reasonable people would find that absurd even if the law or any user agreement supported the publisher.

View on HN

I completely agree with you, it is completely absurd what Nintendo is doing.

Unfortunately, Nintendo does not care what you think, does not care how this hurts their image, and does not care what damage this causes to the emulated longevity of their games lasting longer than the hardware they sell currently.

It is in their financial interests to force everyone to always pay for and buy Nintendo hardware to perpetually keep having to upgrade and purchase new copies of their software from their online stores to keep playing old games.

This is how they do business and by having articles, news, and social media posts constantly crying about how Nintendo did them wrong, it helps ensure that the average person keeps toeing the Nintendo line instead of exploring emulation. If a non-tech savvy person hears "Nintendo sued a guy for using emulation on his game meetup" they'll think, "eh, I think I'll just buy a Switch and not bother with emulation" when they want to play Yoshi's Island because nostalgia hit them in the feels.

This whole thing is a song and dance to keep people buying real Nintendo hardware (or choosing to use already owned Nintendo hardware) to play games they could just emulate with a few quick downloads. It's why you see "Top 5 retro games you can buy on Nintendo eShop before it's gone" articles on Polygon and elsewhere every year. It's a whole schtick to get you to keep handing Nintendo money for a game you've likely already bought and paid for at least once in your life.

Once again, I don't agree with Nintendo's stance, but boy oh boy is it ever profitable for them.

Sure, I'm not suggesting that what Nintendo is doing isn't in their own best interest, given how most gamers will continue to just buy more Nintendo products.

I'm in a minority where Nintendo's actions, on top of a selection of games that I find pretty lackluster, have caused me to give up on them and refuse them another shiny nickel. Attacking fans, IMO, is a no-no. Attacking the abandonware community is especially unacceptable. One can enjoy their games, but I don't get why people defend their being so draconian, given that any loss of revenue they claim over things like game walkthroughs is dubious, to say the least.

Yeah, I'm totally with you. Which is why I wrote a lengthy bit. I didn't feel like you were saying that these practices aren't in Nintendo's financial interests. I merely tacked my explanation on so that if others come through and read it, maybe they'll learn something about how negative Nintendo is towards their community.

I feel like a lot of folks are kind of ignorant to what Nintendo is doing. I don't like these draconian practices, so I try and inform others of the BS as much as I can in hopes that more people will become vocal and stop silently supporting it.

>>they'll think, "eh, I think I'll just buy a Switch and

Or (which is me) " I think I will just buy a SteamDeck and not bother with Nintendo at all"

There is a reason why they are always number 3.... People tire of their BS.

They could be #1 if they would get out of their own way

Hearing you say this warms my heart. Thanks for voting with your wallet!

It might be worth noting that the Switch is still selling better than the Xbox, so they're technically #2:

Total PS4 and PS5 sales: 149.7 million

Total Switch sales: 122.3 million

Total Xbox One + Xbox One X Sales: 70.5 million

When you pair that with the fact the Switch has sold over 900 million in game sales... well, unfortunately, Nintendo has a long way to fall before they have to wake up and change their tact.

The Switch is the 3rd best selling console of all time, ahead of the PS4 by approx. 5 million units despite coming out 4 years after the release of the PS4. They may be #3 in terms of mindshare, but they have an incredibly dedicated fanbase that enjoy their products in spite of their behaviors towards them on the content creation side.

They are around since 1889 under just 6 CEOs, including the interim after the loss of the 4th. They care much more about holding a little family celebration at the next centennials than shooting for T2D3 and going Chapter 11 as soon as possible, which by the way SIE is on track for.

I also bought a Steam Deck for this reason, and am looking forward to emulate the latest Zelda game on it!

> ROM dumping is not a crime or YouTube content violation

Depends on the territory.

It is definitely not legal in the UK for example.

>ROM dumping is not a crime

Not a crime as such, but how does one dump a ROM without making copy, and how does one get the right to make copies if Nintendo won't license you the content? It's fine to make an policy argument about the the law aught to be, but you can't just ignore what it is.

Making a copy for one's own use isn't immoral, no matter what is in the best interest of a business.

It's permissible to create a copy for personal use, so long as you don't distribute the copy. Copyright is primarily about distribution of copies, not the making of copies themselves.

Right but that's a small fig leaf for the people who get sued over this who very much are going beyond personal use. Circling back to it's fine to make a policy argument but dumb to flout the law.

No, copyright law is about the exclusive right to make copies, among other rights. In US law this is 17 USC 106.

The reason making a single copy for personal use is generally considered permissible is because: (1) it may be fair use under 17 USC 107, (2) the copyright owner will probably never find out, and (3) even if the copyright owner found out it probably won’t sue over one copy.

Didn't the DMCA make bypassing copy protections illegal?

ROMs don't generally have copy protection though, do they? I guess arcade ones do.

No, but usually the physical media (DVD / BluRay / Cartridge) does. The issue comes in how do you legally create the Rom without bypassing copy protections.

Not in all territories it isn't.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/quashing-of-private-copyi...

Time for some civil disobedience?

Common misconception, IP laws are about commercial use of something

Personal copies are legal... Just like I can take a patent, build the thing and use it myself, I just can not make commercial product and sell it.

Sorry but I believe you have the misconception, at least under US copyright law. There's some extra penalties for commercial use, but there is no general fair use exception for non-commercial use (as apposed to say educational use, which does have a general exception). Feel free to cite a statute or caselaw if I'm wrong.

Copyright is about DISTRIBUTION to others. If you never distribute a copyrighted work to another person there is zero violation of copyright

This is why I am not aware of anyone ever being sue or otherwise held to account for DOWNLOADING copyrighted works. They always Sue over DISTRIBUTION. BitTorrent got the tag of "Sued for downloading" but in reality people were sued for seeding, ie distributing. I am not aware of any leecher that was sued.

Similar of Usenet, Uploaders, and usenet providers get sued, but downloaders?

The entire point of copyright is about preventing unauthorized distribution,

>This is why I am not aware of anyone ever being sue or otherwise held to account for DOWNLOADING copyrighted works. They always Sue over DISTRIBUTION.

So you must have missed all the filesharing lawsuits over the last 25 years. Lots of people got sued for just downloading, not seeding, just downloading.

I followed them very closely, 99% of them were bit torrent and misreported in the media as "downloading" when in fact if you read the actual cases it was the distribution / uploading that was the bases of the case

Copyright is about DISTRIBUTION

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106

Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;

You are quite wrong about both copyright and patent law. There is no non-commercial exception or personal use exception in either domain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com