Unsurprisingly, Nintendo of America has gone after the Link's Awakening DX HD fan project, less than a day after the fangame gained publicity online. Once hosted on Itch.io, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX HD has been removed from the platform, following a DMCA takedown from Nintendo. The notice, shown below, cites copyright infringement for uploading a fully playable version of a Nintendo game. The Link's Awakening fangame was uploaded only after it was completed, though, meaning a backup likely still lurks somewhere on the internet.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am an authorized representative of Nintendo of America Inc., owner of the following copyrighted material:

PA0002212311 (The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening) and PA0000772666 (Legend of Zelda : Link's awakening (Game Boy version).

It has come to our attention that the following game, https://linksawakeningdxhd.itch.io/links-awakening-dx-hd, offered on Itch.io infringes and makes unauthorized use of Nintendo’s copyrights in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening video game.

For additional information visit Nintendo’s website at the following URLs:

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/game-boy-nintendo-switch-online-switc...

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-s...

Please act expeditiously to remove the download and information page for the infringing game.

I have a good faith belief that the material is not authorized by the intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law. The information provided in the notice is accurate, and I swear under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the intellectual property owner.

Sincerely,

Nintendo Legal

Nintendo of America Inc.

Source

 

[Shadow#1]

works really well on

 

[Luke94]

Maybe fans should consider making YouTube videos showcasing it that all Nintendo’s IPs’ should be ported to Nintendo Switch. I’m not even sure if what I know if it might prevent lawsuits,but maybe it will prevent DMCA and copyrights infringements.

 

[duwen]

You could ask the same question about unsigned code/homebrew developers, ROM dumpers, ROM hacks, emulators, fan games, and decomplication projects when the legality of a majority of these are in limbo for the threat the possibility of courts siding WITH them pose to the status quo.

Not the same at all. There's nothing to stop anyone from dumping roms or creating patches to apply to those roms (ie, rom hacks).

...but Fangames and decompiled projects that use intelectual property will always be on rocky ground.

 

[Maximumbeans]

You kind of have to question the sanity of anyone that undertakes projects like these, knowing that this is always the inevitable outcome when dealing with Nintendo IP's.

In some ways it makes them even more beautiful as endeavours of passion and art. It's almost like making a painstaking meal for a toddler who will smush it to bits. You know what's going to happen but love makes it worth every second regardless.

 

[duwen]

In some ways it makes them even more beautiful as endeavours of passion and art. It's almost like making a painstaking meal for a toddler who will smush it to bits. You know what's going to happen but love makes it worth every second regardless.

Yes... If that meal is an enhanced recreation of KFC and Colonel Sanders is the toddler.

 

[DragonMals]

Something that I would like to know is: how does the N64 decomps of sm64 and oot able to exist? cause you need to use the official roms for them to work?

if that's the case, maybe this remake would've gotten better if you needed the gb rom for it to work.

 

[Metoroid0]

So much ignorance and entitlement here. This wasn't just a fan game, this was just simple piracy. Piracy from a game Nintendo is still making money from to this day through their online subscription. Had they gone another, where you had to provide your own rom to extract assets, it would have been another story.

I also saw some posts about Sony deleting your paid content. Please get informed, they deleted the app because of legal reasons (contract with Discovery expired), you can still access all that content through apps for other devices or the Discovery webpage I believe.

Don't like Nintendo, or need a reason so you can justify pirating? Go ahead, but this isn't one of them.

I don't justify piracy, but this is not piracy. It's actually called:
Fans are just having fun with things they like and harming no one, and not profiting but promoting the brand, and in return it gains more positive popularity to said brand and the company, thus, making it free advertisement for Nintendo.

Yeah, that's how its called!

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2023

I knew this was going to happen.
Heh.

you dont say.

 

[BeniBel]

I don't justify piracy, but this is not piracy. It's actually called:
Fans are just having fun with things they like and harming no one, and not profiting but promoting the brand, and in return it gains more positive popularity to said brand and the company, thus, making it free advertisement for Nintendo.

Yeah, that's how its called!

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2023

you dont say.

No.

Not harming anyone? If only one person plays this instead of the version Nintendo offers through Switch Online, it can be debated it hurts Nintendo as they lost on a potential sale. It could also be debated that it puts Nintendo in a bad spot, because people will say "how can an indie developer create an advanced version and Nintendo can't", leaving them with negative publicity.

Having fun is one thing, remaking an entire game is piracy, simple as that.

 

[Metoroid0]

No.

Not harming anyone? If only one person plays this instead of the version Nintendo offers through Switch Online, it can be debated it hurts Nintendo as they lost on a potential sale. It could also be debated that it puts Nintendo in a bad spot, because people will say "how can an indie developer create an advanced version and Nintendo can't", leaving them with negative publicity.

Having fun is one thing, remaking an entire game is piracy, simple as that.

But Nintendo do sell games online, in fact they are doing better than ever in history of a company.

This is just a couple dudes online having fun among each-other and sharing their passion with us.
So i cant say that i agree with you on that one. No one is really harmed.

We all buy Nintnedo games (people who play hacks and people who don't), and rom hacks and fan remakes are just passion projects that show love and appreciation about said IP, company...
Those fan games are niche anyway, many normes don't even know this exist and they certainly wont stop buying Nintendo games because this remake/rom hack or whatever exists.

I just think you're way over dramatizing the situation.

Also, its not piracy. no one is distributing the original game ROM and selling it.
Also, even if they did (which many sites online do) Nintendo is still one of richest company in the world and its getting richer.

They aren't really suffering, they are just assholes lol. simple as that.
(sega does what nintendond)

 

[linuxares]

Also, its not piracy. no one is distributing the original game ROM and selling it.
Also, even if they did (which many sites online do) Nintendo is still one of richest company in the world and its getting richer.

They aren't really suffering, they are just assholes lol. simple as that.
(sega does what nintendond)

Nah, it's not direct piracy. But it's a copyright violation so it's more or less the same.
They just do as any company would do and protect their IP. You would do the same if someone took your product and released it for free.

 

[Metoroid0]

Post automatically merged: Dec 18, 2023

Nah, it's not direct piracy. But it's a copyright violation so it's more or less the same.
They just do as any company would do and protect their IP. You would do the same if someone took your product and released it for free.

 

[SylverReZ]

if that would be the case most if not all emulators,wrappers,interpretation layers ,mods,fan games etc were illegal cuz u could argue its somewhat part of intelectual property

most of those who gotten taken down by c&d got taken down out of fear because nintendo has the money for the legal process what most of normal people lacks and thats a big point y so many hate on nintendo
(remember not every country has the same law and those drakonic japanese laws like for instance its illegal to cheat pokemon,to have a smash tournament or even hack your own console does only aplly in japan)

on the other side you could argue that those fangames are fair use since theyre werent sold or in other words those are non profit projects and recreating the game and assets are somewhat transformative

at least here in germany this case would be dissmissed since they used their own code and made their own assets and they didnt provide the rom

and in your both twisted logic it would be illegal even just to draw a charachter what somewhat resembles mario even a fanstory about link or any other ninty charachter would be illegal

cmon guys pleas dont be so braindead
this isnt a topic which you can easiely split in black and white there are so many factors at play here


if it were so illegal y doesnt any other game company acts like nintendo? you may say nintendo has to act because if they dont they copyright might get expired but in the realworld this never happend and it wont automaticly be public domain if they dont act just like the case with old disney movies

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Take a break from the internet, your post doesn't make any sense.

 

[linuxares]

Yes, since it was a worthless point since it isn't grounded in reality on how companies work. They want all the money, not some of the money.

 

[Metoroid0]

Take a break from the internet, your post doesn't make any sense.

It makes sense to me tho.
People just need to chill with topics like these and be honest with themself and not be fanboys.

 

[Kitocco]

Not the same at all. There's nothing to stop anyone from dumping roms or creating patches to apply to those roms (ie, rom hacks).

Not exactly. The Doctor V64 by Bung Enterprises was ruled to violate the DMCA for circumventing protection measures (I presume those lockout/CIC chips which necessitated the use of a cart with the same chip on Passport carts to play bootlegs), and that copying the carts onto hard drives was infringement in itself.

There's protections for cracking DRM when game servers shut down so it can function afterwards. But even this year, Nintendo barred Dolphin from releasing on Steam for including cryptographic keys (y'know, the ones obtained with a friccin tweezer, of all things). But it hasn't been tested in court.
Emulation is legal (as it should be), but there doesn't seem to be protections for say, homebrew hardware & software dumping games for those emulators (as there SHOULD be already)

 

[SeventhSon7]

What magical time was this? Intellectual property laws have been around and affecting entertainment from before video games existence. Copy protection schemes have existed from the start of the video game industry and there was a patent infringement lawsuit around Pong and Magnavox which is generally considered to be the first home video game.

It should be noted that Nintendo's initial success in USA came from defending against a copyright infringement suit from Universal over Donkey Kong... by proving that King Kong is in the public domain.

BTW, has Nintendo ever gone after Kaizo SMW?

 

[Noctosphere]

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[Kitocco]

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Streets of Rage, Persona, & Megami Tensei fans have entered the chat

 

[realtimesave]

Nintendo games are free so I win.

 

[CheatFreak47]

I gotta say, the absolute gigachad energy coming from the author of this fan game is astounding.

Imagine spending time and energy developing a remake of a whole game, completely in secret, barely post anything about it, and release it with no fanfare, no-license source code included, anonymously, using new accounts named after the project.

This is how you *have* to make Nintendo Fan Games now.