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"Hey, don't use code for our dead game console we stopped manufacturing 22 years ago and don't support anymore!"
Who gives a fuck, Nintendo?
Nintendo could benefit greatly by just allowing these kind of projects, but that would be out of character and we can't be having that.
It's a bit like if Metallica had just embraced Napster
It was Scorpions that went after Napster, no?
It was primarily Metallica.
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Lars Ultrash was the most publicly outspoken and often quoted in the Record Companies PR propaganda push for the DMCA and against Napster. He came off like a greedy bitch at the time, and created the perceptions of Metallica as a cash grab sell out band more than they already were being seen as by long time fans.
It wasn't Nintendo, it was Valve taking preemptive action because of how Nintendo has acted in the past...
It's unfortunate, but it's pretty reasonable given how Nintendo is.
Wasn’t it taken down at Valve’s request, not Nintendo’s demand?
Yes, but mainly because Valve doesn't want to deal with Nintendo's lawyers since it used their libraries.
I really wish they would and set a precedent for Nintendo's anti-consumer tactics.
It's a shame, but their request doesn't seem unreasonable. No one likes dealing with Nintendo's lawyers. I hope switching SDKs works out!
Apparently even Valve's lawyers don't like dealing with Nintendo's lawyers.
I mean... Tbf, they are kinda dicks, so yeah, I get it.
If there's anything I've learned from my interactions with my local (city) government, it's that staff lawyers are lazy fucks who won't lift a finger to do what's clearly the right thing without somebody else that has power whipping them along.
I think people are missing the fact that most fanmade content that Valve has historically been ok with is all original material. Black Mesa, Portal Stories, and others all used the Valve IP but were all original content. This port actually uses Valve-created content so, regardless of Nintendo’s involvement (although it makes the demand for this action stronger), they legally have to enforce it or risk losing the legal protections for that property.
Nintendo just gave them a convenient way to stop it before they needed to do it anyways.
I don't think thats how it works for copyright. You have to defend your trademarks to keep them but for copyright, you can decide who can use it rather arbitralily.
Especially allowing a release of an old game on platform you don't support which would not really compete with you.
It’s not about whether it competes. It’s about whether a “reasonable person” could confuse it for being an authorized product of the IP owner. In this case, people could confuse it with both a licensed Nintendo product (since it runs on original hardware) and it could be confused with an official Valve release (since the content is an exact (as possible) recreation of the levels and assets from the original game.
So you are clearly talking about trademark. A game design can't be trademarked. Only the name. Yes, if the name could be confused, that could be an issue. Maybe the cover art to some extent, if it is trademarked.
But if the game origin can be confused, so what? No law against that.
It sucks but I also wouldn’t want to get involved with Nintendos lawyers so I can’t blame Steam.
So because it depends on Nintendo libraries, valve wanted it taken down, but valve doesn't represent nintendo and the project isn't by them or on steam, so who's actually at risk of being sued and why?
If Nintendo asked the developer to stop using Nintendo stuff I'd get it, but in that case it was never legal to begin with and the developer knew they had no license to use those libraries, so why all of a sudden does the developer not want to continue at the request of valve, are they an employee of valve or something? This is super weird, its not even a nintendo IP
Pure speculation:
Nitendo is one of the most notorious copyright litigators in the industry, it would not surprise me if they objected to the use of their libraries and pressured valve to exercise their ownership of the IP to shut it down
I know nothing about this, so honestly don't listen to me. But Nitendo is a huge joykill so I'm happy just assuming it's at least partly their fault
So because it depends on Nintendo libraries, valve wanted it taken down, but valve doesn’t represent nintendo and the project isn’t by them or on steam, so who’s actually at risk of being sued and why?
Valve is happy to allow fan creations when they are on Steam. Valve doesn't want such things outside of Steam and used a sock puppet to save face.
Maybe if he gets permission from Nintendo he could keep going
My bet is that Valve doesn't like it when you reproduce their games using the same name, since both this and TF2 source 2 got hit, but we also got an original portal mod on steam last week, and Black Mesa is a monetized remake of HL1 that exists on steam.
Hell there are dozens of mods and expansions available directly on steam with their own store page instead of workshop.
Black Mesa also had to change its name one time iirc. It was originally being developed as Black Mesa: Source, and Valve told them to drop the "Source" part.
Watching Black Mesa development was really neat, because it kept getting delayed, then they stopped updating fans while insisting it was still in development, and we'd all pretty much decided it was never getting finished.
Then it came finally came out and was so good Valve let them license and sell it.
Just read the article. It's about Nintendo.
Valve has stated that they are okay with people making mods using their property, as long as they either openly state that they are not Valve, and do not use Valves IP in their names unless they ask for permission by Valve, which they will give in many cases. They are more strict when it comes to commercial games using their IP, of course. I think in the case of Portal 64 though, it definitely has to do with Nintendo's ridiculously over the top protection of their copyrights.
Why not just call it something else? Valve doesn't own the concept of portals. Swap out the models and textures and then accidentally release a separate conversation mod when the project is done.
It sounds from the article like the ultimate issue is use of Nintendo IP, not Valve's.
Though I've never understood why Nintendo is so authoritarian about its IP.
Not just Nintendo, it's a Japanese thing. (Not to suggest it's unique to them, just look at Disney.)
Nintendo is scared shitless of getting their IP rights taken from them by allowing general usage. For instance, they absolutely hated that old thing where any old person would call any game console a Nintendo because if Nintendo became a generic word for console they'd lose protections for it.
The ridiculous thing is that if I recall correctly this game isn't using Nintendo IP. It's just trying to run on outdated Nintendo hardware. Come to think of it is Nintendo trying to copyright low poly art styles.
From what I read, the codebase is using Nintendo proprietary sdk libraries in its codebase. So that is technically Nintendo IP. The fix is to switch to open source implementations of those libraries. But the dev is hesitant to put in that work without Valve's approval, because if he does that work Valve can still fuck him over for using their Portal IP, and an n64 game isn't distributable on Steam, so there's literally nothing in it for Valve to bless/support it. So he's worried that all that effort would be for naught. And Nintendo already threatened Valve in the past when Dolphin was attempting to distribute on Steam, and Valve backed down. So the theory is that Valve doesn't want to piss off the big N in any way legally.
Now, we can ask ourselves why almost 30 year old sdks are still valuable to Nintendo, but unfortunately copyright law being what it is, it's technically illegal to do what the dev did. He should have seen this coming and used the open source libraries instead of the Nintendo proprietary ones. But I say this not knowing how good those open source libraries are, they could have problems, be incomplete, etc., or maybe not exist when he started the project. But either way a dev should have known using Nintendo IP in any form is fraught with peril.
While the ultimate issue is Nintendo's IP, obviously you can't remove Nintendo's IP in this case since it's for the N64, so the only other option is to remove valves. I understand why valve doesn't want to implicitly endorse an N64 game with their IP by saying nothing, but if they remove valves IP then all that's left is a generic N64 hobby project which Nintendo wouldn't bother acknowledging.
Because that is all they got. Even if they make some profit on the sale of the hardware, it is peanuts compared to the game and tie-in sales. Losing control of even a single IP would be a serious hit to them.
It sounds from the article like the ultimate issue is use of Nintendo IP, not Valve’s.
But it wasn't Nintendo of America who issued the takedown. It was Valve and they don't represent Nintendo.
Swap out the models and textures and then accidentally release a separate conversation mod when the project is done.
And audio. The GLADOS monologues are in as well.
This blows. Lawyers ruin everything
Valve has been quite supportive of fan projects like Black Mesa and Delta Particles and only demanding to remove Half-Life from the name to protect their trademark. But I guess they don't want to risk involving Nintendo.
It wasn't even on Steam
That's why it was taken down. Valve needs their cut.
Til valve gets a "cut" from free downloads
How the fuck is that what you got from my comment.
What would they be getting a cut of when its free, is what they're saying.
And I'm saying the reason Valve took it down, was because it's a free download not on their service. So Valve isn't getting a cut.
Dang anyone got a demo dl link before it was taken down?
Lmk if you find it. I bought an everdrive just to play it and now it's gone ;-;
No surprise, but hopefully they can figure something out with Valve
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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