Yet another casualty goes down in the never-ending battle of copyright enforcement, and this time, it hit a big website which was the host for many fangames based and inspired on Pokemon, called "Relic Castle".

Earlier this week, the owner and the manager of the Relic Castle website, Marin and Andy, respectively, gave the news about the website being taken down by a DMCA notice (which according to the owners, was given by a third-party authorized by The Pokemon Company) throughout the Relic Castle Discord server, as well as through their official Relic Castle website, closing it down entirely and only giving the following message upon entering the website:

Dear Pokémon fan game community,

It is with heavy heart that I announce that the Relic Castle website has been taken down following a DMCA takedown notice.

Relic Castle has always been a non-profit, ad-free, tight-knit community and we pride ourselves in what we have achieved. Members have felt at home, made friends, and even careers with us. It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that the forum part of this community, which was to turn 10 years old this year, has had to come to an end. With over 20,000 members and 65,000 posts, Relic Castle was a home to many of us.

The Discord server is not going anywhere, and the site is still visible as an archive using the Wayback Machine.

Thank you all for being with us this last decade, and thank you for making Relic Castle as awesome and life-changing as it has been for some of us.

Sincerely,
Marin
Owner
&
Andy
Manager

This isn't the first time The Pokemon Company has taken down fan projects based on the Pokemon IP, as was the case with the highly known Pokemon Uranium fangame, and not only that, but The Pokemon Co. has been hard at work hunting down and shutting down all kinds of mods related to Pokemon in any sort of way, like the most recent case of the Palworld-Pokemon mod which was instantly taken down by a DMCA.

Both Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have been on hot waters with all their recent legal actions towards fan projects, emulation and mods, and given their aggressive legal nature, it's unlikely they are going to stop anytime soon.

Source
Relic Castle archive at Archive.org

 

[eyeliner]

It would be nice to see partnership program instead of people just using crap without permission, say small dev pitches idea to Nintendo, Nintendo accepts, an agreement is signed pay whatever then you can legally use Ip and such in fan made content.

Nintendo never worked that way.

 

[SilverLobster]

Can they not just make a NEW WEBSITE with all the same links but under a different name?? Like how many times has The Pirate Bay been taken down just to come back again? people should say screw these stupid DMCA's instead of just giving up against Nintendo/The Pokemon Company and being like "well guess we can't do anything about it"...

 

[K3Nv2]

Nintendo will never do that, they have their heads so up their asses that they will never accept any kind of suggestion or pitch from small indie devs, much less unknown fangame developers.
Just look at their responses back when Federation Force came out, despite the massive backlash, they held to their idiocy all the way throughout and never bent. The same applies to other things, they've done through their lifetime, Joycon drift could be another example, despite them "trying" to mitigate it with free repairs, the issue is still there and alive to this day, even on OLED models.

Yeah but it would be such a nice program to see what people could come up with even if Nintendo took 80% of the cut we may get a good few gems.

 

[PotatoStatic]

Better not DMCA PokeCommunity. I want to eventually get the full version of Pokemon Coral.

 

[LeoTCK]

The DMCA is the worst thing to happen in America to digital media. Abolish the DMCA.

The YMCA SMACKDOWN is real bad, worse than GEP GUN TAKEDOWN.

No but really it only really holds water in the US. People are just peeing their pants. I would fight such notice, until its at actual court there's not much to worry about. I'd tell them: Fuck off.


But yea they maybe saw this image that was one other day posted here in the chat by bakerman, though I did see it elsewhere too:

 

[Bladexdsl]

Joycon drift could be another example, despite them "trying" to mitigate it with free repairs, the issue is still there and alive to this day, even on OLED models.

but if they fixed it they would have to use better parts than costing them more instead of the cheap trash they currently use

 

[LoggerMan]

The repository should have perhaps been a private group, like how private torrent sites just have a mysterious login page and you can' just sign up, you need to be invited.

 

[Jayro]

Be really careful what you wish for. The DMCA is what made it legal to backup copies of your own games.

It was still legal here before that too, but alright...

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Never even heard of Relic Castle (aside from the namesake location in Unova).
I have heard of Project Pokémon, but not RC; as long as Luminescent Platinum and Compass remain available, along with the classic BlazeBlack (and BB2) and SacredGold, and I guess Infinite Fusions as well, I don't really care.

 

[codezer0]

#FuckGameFreak
#FuckSatoshiTajiri
#FuckNintendoLegal

 

[NinStar]

if Nintendo ever tries to go after Mario Fan Games Galaxy I'm going to take it personally.

 

[Zowayix]

It was still legal here before that too, but alright...

No, the backup exception was added by the DMCA. Before then, multiple courts said that making backup copies of game carts was illegal.

 

[hybori]

People who wants their mainline Pokemon games on the NSO =

Old Pokemon games that we will never see coming back ever again made by fans getting removed =

 

[MasterJ360]

My question is why do ppl even bother with fan games of Nintendo publicly? They have been taken these types of games down for years.

 

[whitesword7]

Doesn’t seem like a “free” country when you have something like DMCA… in my country finding a clean ofw console on online store is harder than finding a modded console

 

[Zowayix]

https://www.eurogamer.net/former-po...ighting-projects-for-the-company-to-take-down

"Former Pokemon lawyer thanks media for highlighting projects for the company to take down"

Not directly related, but here's an article from less than 2 weeks ago where for the first(?) time, the head of TPCi legal discloses something about how they take down fan games.

 

[samcambolt270]

when they start DMCA logos that's when they will have gone FULL APPLE

technically, they aren't allowed to do that (not that it ever stopped them before tho) because trademark and copyright are different things. The correct course of action for somone usng your logo is a c&d letter, then after that, a lawsuit with an in junction. Dmca takedowns are exclusively for copyright violations and it's actually considered a crime to use it for any other purpose.

 

[MurraySkull]

Can they not just make a NEW WEBSITE with all the same links but under a different name?? Like how many times has The Pirate Bay been taken down just to come back again? people should say screw these stupid DMCA's instead of just giving up against Nintendo/The Pokemon Company and being like "well guess we can't do anything about it"...

Agreed! Time to stand up to the big guys! Sure, some small guys could get their lives ruined by lawsuits, but I suppose that's worth it if it means the big companies get their reputations destroyed as a result.

 

[Bladexdsl]

technically, they aren't allowed to do that (not that it ever stopped them before tho) because trademark and copyright are different things. The correct course of action for somone usng your logo is a c&d letter, then after that, a lawsuit with an in junction. Dmca takedowns are exclusively for copyright violations and it's actually considered a crime to use it for any other purpose.

didn't stop apple they tried to sue woolworths for their logo and my personal fav a train station CLOCK!

 

[Topaz95]

if Nintendo ever tries to go after Mario Fan Games Galaxy I'm going to take it personally.

Same but for SMWCentral. Been going there since the late 2000's.