The article says that they *think* it wouldn't make a difference. I have no position on Dolphin being on Steam but it might have been worth it to try without the key once.
after careful considerations and consulting lawyers, and doing that more then one time
> been worth it to try without the key once.
No it would make the situation worse for them, they can publish it _without any WII support at all_. But not just without the key.
Trying it without the key would be like saying "we do know it's illegal" instead of "it's clearly covered by DMCA exceptions and related law".
Removing the key without removing the whole WII functionality *is the one think they must no do no matter what*.
but in this case it wouldn't be a legal admission of guild but it would be propagated as such by Nintendo if there ever is a legal case reducing the odds of winning such an hypothetical case
The reason why Dolphin is legal is based on it being mainly a tool for playing old games you own and potentially with mods, accessibility tools and similar.
So for Nintendo to win a case they would need to convince the judge that it's mainly meant for illegal copyright infringement.
Their argument would likely be on the line of the Wii code without the ability to load legal Wii games is useless and having it would be really strange as you could only use it with illegal copies with the copy protection stripped. And stripping it is always illegal to do. So it would be designed for illegal usage. (And rare new games released that way but they would argue it doesn't matter in the grater picture).
I.e. it would be easier for them to win a legal case against Dolphin without it having been an legal admittance of guild.
...which is completely unrelated, since it was Valve who asked Nintendo even though they didn't really have to.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendo-reportedly-issues-dmca-...
Nintendo has an ideological position that essentially the first sale doctrine is wrong and they have privilege over you for things you legally purchased.
They already don't and yet that's what they are doing.
There's a difference between legal and private pressure.
Nintendo doesn't have any right, in the legal sense. That doesn't mean it's smart for Valve to make an enemy of Nintendo. It's obvious Nintendo uses that pressure. Not legal pressure. The DMCA claim is just pretense.
If Nintendo believes they had a valid claim why only enforce it with Steam but no other places Dolphin is available?
no that code is most most likely not illegal at all because there are cases, under DMCA, where code like that is fully legal
this is nothing but a ruse of Nintendo threatening Valve to avoid having to do a proper DMCA request/suing as such an action can be disputed in court, an dispute Nintendo is likely to lose
so it's basically Nintendo pressuring Valve to circumvent proper DMCA enforcement procedures in their favor in a sketchy dishonest way which undermines the law (but might happen to not be illegal)
if Nintendo would think it's illegal they would already have used DMCA to take down Dolphin everywhere, instead of using such roundabout ways
1. Start a lawsuit against Valve rather than Dolphin Team as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Valve could then end up spending millions defending itself from the mad tyrant and the best case is it spent millions to confirm it was doing nothing wrong in the first place.
2. Tell all their 3rd party publishers to stop publishing on Steam, in order to continue doing business with them, utterly ruining Steam.
In both these cases, it has nothing to do with legality or the DMCA, which Dolphin Team's own lawyers have explained if you'd just read the article. It has to do with a big bully getting angry if it doesn't get what it wants, and is willing to throw its weight around.
Portal: Companion Collection (containing Portal and Portal 2) came put last year.
Retro games are in jeopardy of being lost forever because publishers/developers actively work against making it possible to preserve game history.
If that doesn't do harm to the common good, I don't know what does.
Also I doubt they would care about the legality in the slightest. It's not like they would send a press release about it.
It would be an one-time, in-person, strictly private meeting between the respective publishers and executive management. Like the one where they're shown a new console and talk about renewed licensing terms for the platform.
Nintendo is straight up evil. US courts have told them in direct language that they are wrong and emulation is fine, but they don't give a fuck and the US seems against preventing big money entities from harassing people with lawsuits or fixing the goddamn court system to not cost you a million dollars when you are unambiguously in the right.
They need Valve to not block them for Nintendo without legal case based on some excuses (which Valve as store owner is somewhat allowed to do).
And the one thing Nintendo does not want is a legal case, because they know they are most likely going to lose it and then it's likely not just dolphin which would take advantage of the additional legal clarity created by the case.
In the EU I'm not sure there even would be a case because the law being _that_ clear cut in favor of Dolphin.
but it's Valve which is blocking them not Nintendo
and sure Valve might do so on behest of Nintendo but it's still Valves doing so
the idea that Dolphine (or Valve) have to asks Nintendo for anything is just completly absurd and beyond any legal basis
which is why Nintendo doesn't use the proper legal methods here IMHO, because then you can dispute it and they can (probably will) lose
but as long as Valve plays along there is nothing much Dolphin can do, so again it's Valve who first needs to be convinced before then either Nintendo gives up or you have a proper legal dispute with them
anyway like you correctly pointed out there is no way for Dolphin to affect Valve so the is no way for Dolphi on steam
AI art isn't illegal, but Steam still has taken a position of not wanting to be the middleman for distribution of such content.
All indications are that the dubious legality of ML-generated art is exactly why Valve is not approving those games. Valve isn't taking a moral stance against ML-generated art, they're playing it safe legally by avoiding distributing such games when they cannot ensure the ML models were not trained on unlicensed content and will not spew copyright infringements.
Valve isn't taking a moral stance against emulators, they're playing it safe legally by avoiding distributing such games when they cannot ensure that unlicensed software won't be run on them and will not invite copyright takedowns.
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Valve doesn't want to carry software that they may be sued over as a distributor.
Until they are on very firm standing that it is ok, they pull the software.
https://kotaku.com/workers-resources-steam-pc-dmca-takedown-...
https://kotaku.com/workers-resources-soviet-republic-pc-dmca...
As a distributor of software, Steam has no appetite for distributing any software that may lead it to legal entanglements. Spurious DMCA requests, AI art, or credible threats from Nintendo - that game cannot be distributed.
Valve limited there store to "in general not contain products of a certain type (here AI art containing)".
But in case of Dolphin this isn't the case but a explicit ban of dolphine without it braking Valve TOS.
If Valve would but in their TOS that "emulators are generally not allowed" then rejecting Dolphine would be okay and no one would have wirten any blogs or news articles about it, or even tried to put it on steam.
It's is in the sense that through Valve Nintendo effectively circumvented the legal protections targets of DMCA take down notices have.
So while this is not using law it has everything to do with circumventing law.
If Valve says no, Dolphin doesn't come out on Steam. If Valve says "ask Nintendo", and Nintendo says no, Dolphin doesn't come out on Steam. Dolphin doesn't get a pass to be published everywhere because what they're doing is legal.
Bollocks. Nintendo has a reputation for suing the hell out of anyone, often repeatedly, even if they would likely lose. They're rabid about protecting their IP, to the point where they're infamous for it.
Family friendly front-end, but ruthless corporation behind it. They'd absolutely get lawyers and charge in aggressively.
Valve has nothing to gain by putting their money at risk for someone else's emulator; "no dog in this fight".
And with how it's currently they for sure guaranteed won't see dolphin or similar on steam, a sure fire way which might even be cheaper then suing.
Also AFIK in most cases where they sue they either have a good chance of winning or losing will just lose that case and not set a precedence which can cost them dearly.
The only thing they'd really lose is the money they already spent on lawyers, and they're more than happy to accept that loss. Nintendo will sue in futile situations just to make the other party miserable.
If you considers how many people in this chat alone just blindly assumed it's illegal, and that's given a "more tech affine audience of HN, then that is a huge deal.
Nor does Valve have anything to gain if this actually shifts legal precedents; it may even hurt them in the long run.
Legal or illegal doesn't matter, this is a cost-benefit for defending someone else's project, and the cost is plainly not worth it.
Valve just said they did.
>They need Valve to not block them for Nintendo without legal case based on some excuses
Or what, they sue Valve? It's still their store. Valve can reject any title for any reason (well, almost any reason. But proving discimination here would be difficult).
I've come across this issue with Valve's vague rulings for dozens of titles, so I'm not exactly surprised the outcome here once again favors Valve. But people are still in blind devotion for Valve instead of realizing that they have been leveraging their pseudo-monopoly on the Pc platform for years now.