Back in March we had the distinct pleasure in announcing that the Dolphin Emulation Software was tracking for a release on Steam – but Valve has received a DMCA takedown notice from the big red machine, pausing development on the project.
As seen on PC Gamer, the takedown notice cites the following:
Because the Dolphin emulator violates Nintendo’s intellectual property rights, including but not limited to its rights under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s Anti-Circumvention and AntiTrafficking provisions, 17 U.S.C. § 1201, we provide this notice to you of your obligation to remove the offering of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam store.
DMCA regulations call for platforms such as Steam to remove content upon receiving such a notice, then to provide notice to the ‘infringing party’, who can submit a counter claim. You may have seen the process undertaken on YouTube, where content ownership is often brought in to question.
Many observers were quick to claim that it is simply Nintendo ‘being greedy’, but the notice goes in to detail to explain that the infringed content is in relation to Wii cryptographic keys.
For those who want a resume on the video:
The reason nintendo is trying to dmca dolphin from steam is beacuse the dolphin emulator has the wii common keys included in the source code, its the reason why other emulators ask you to get the common keys/bios to evade a dmca complaint https://t.co/vAAxfZRs15— ◇𝕂𝕠𝕣𝕚𝔽𝕣𝕠𝕤𝕥◇ – (MM Arc) (@FrostedKorns) May 27, 2023
Without going into extreme detail, these keys are generated by Nintendo and serve as a means to “decrypt the first layer of encryption used on channels and disc-based games” as an anti-piracy measure. In this case, it appears that Dolphin was openly using a specific key (the Wii AES-128 Common Key) that is wholly owned by Nintendo, rather than a key of their own design.
This puts Dolphin in some hot water – because it isn’t as simple as “WELL EMULATION IS LEGAL” – it is actually a dispute on using something that isn’t theirs to use.
Dolphin has issued a statement explaining their disappointment on having to postpone the release, but also mentioning that they are investigating their options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.
How do you feel about the situation? Was it a risky move on Dolphins part? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
Shoutouts to PC Gamer.
Known throughout the interwebs simply as M0D3Rn, Ash is bad at video games. An old guard gamer who suffers from being generally opinionated, it comes as no surprise that he is both brutally loyal and yet, fiercely whimsical about all things electronic. On occasion will make a youtube video that actually gets views. Follow him on YouTube @Bad at Video Games
