Nintendo has sent a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice to the developers of the open source Dolphin emulator as the developers prepare to release it on Steam.
For those who don’t know much about it Dolphin emulatorIt is an open source application that enables users to play Nintendo GameCube, Wii and Nintendo Switch games on PC and portable devices such as the Steam Deck.
The development team launched the Steam page on March 28 and announced it on Dolphin’s own blog, where it stated the following:
“We are excited to finally share our experience with the world. This has been the result of many months of work, and we look forward to getting it into the hands of our users soon!”
Nintendo also sent a DMCA notice to Valve, which owns the Steam platform, in order to remove the page and block the emulator’s release. The following notice stated:
“Because Dolphin Emulator infringes Nintendo’s intellectual property rights, including without limitation its rights under the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 USC § 1201, we are providing you with this notice. Your commitment to remove the Dolphin Emulator demo from the Steam Store”
The DCMA notice to Valve cites the DMCA Anti-Fraud and Piracy Act. He specifically claims that the Dolphin emulator works by combining encryption keys without Nintendo’s permission and decrypting the ROM at or just before boot time. Thus, using the Dolphin Emulator is illegal as it would be possible to access a work protected by copyright law.
In the meantime, Valve has responded to Nintendo’s request by removing the page. While the simulation application is still available via Github, the aforementioned site did not receive any alert or notification from Nintendo until the moment of writing this news.
