*** UPDATE ***

Writing this in the heat of the moment, I was incorrect with my understanding of one part of this story. Nintendo did not file a DMCA take down request. Nintendo sent a cease and desist, where they mentioned their rights under the DMCA. This is an important distinction that I missed. 

As to the numerous comments on this editorial claiming the Dolphin emulator uses Nintendo intellectual property, I am not a lawyer, but we’ll have to watch and see if a court case establishes that an encryption key can be considered IP. In much the same way that if someone were to “hack” your laptop because your password was “12345”, would we consider that password intellectual property?

This is an ongoing legal battle, and akin to the fight over DVD encryption, the idea of an encryption key being protected IP doesn’t seem to have been tested directly in any recent court cases. Considering the complexity of code required to run a computer or game console, I stand by my statement that the Dolphin emulator does not include any proprietary Nintendo IP, even for it including an encryption key. Many will disagree with me, but I believe including Nintendo’s “password” is not the same as including more complex code.

I’m leaving the letter as originally written, to maintain the emotional tone of the editorial. I always welcome debate, but rude or insulting comments will of course be scrubbed.

*** Original Editorial ***

Dear Nintendo, 

This emulator stuff? I think you’re doing it wrong.  

I have a LOT of fondness for your games. My family has been into gaming since the earliest days of arcades and Atari home consoles. I was so fortunate to grow up in the early 80’s with nerd parents who were ahead of the curve on video gaming.

We rode the wave of your classic consoles through the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 64-bit eras. To this day, my younger siblings still sport Switches as their primary gaming solutions.  

I still have a lot of classic Nintendo gear, mostly in storage, but I got off the console gaming train around the Wii and PS3 hardware generation.  

I’m also a PC nerd. Software licensing was changing back then. In the early 2000’s, PC gaming started experimenting with online stores and digital distribution. There was a lot of anxious editorializing of online stores, copy protection, verification, and “ownership”.

Years later, we still face some challenges with titles in online shops. We might not really “own” that content when it’s licensed to web stores, but the generational convenience has kept me far more invested in PC gaming than in recent console gaming.  

The idea of buying a box, then buying content for a box, and only being able to consume that content on one box, is sorely antiquated. My Wife and I ran into that limitation hard with Playstations.   Continue reading “An open letter to Nintendo about Emulators: You’re doing it wrong… “