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Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
30 May 2023 at 11:39 pm UTC Likes: 1
30 May 2023 at 11:39 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: Mountain ManWell, that's a point. Mind you, game piracy is hardly cataclysmic, either. Weighing a small good versus a trivial problem becomes once again difficult.Quoting: JordanPlayz158Yes, I understand that. My point is that losing art is not the cataclysmic event that some people make it out to be. Mainly, I'm talking about people who justify piracy and emulation for the purpose of "game preservation".Quoting: Mountain ManBut here is something to think about: countless works of art have been lost throughout human history, and will continue to be lost. Are we worse off as a species because of it?I mean there is definitely a reason that archaeologists and museums exist, to find, showcase, and preserve old history that were previously lost to human history before discovery.
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
30 May 2023 at 8:04 pm UTC Likes: 4
But. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are "in the right"; that's an ethical issue, not a legal one. Ethically, the law they're invoking, and particularly the section of that law they're invoking, is a bad law. And it is annoying that one country's bad law gets to cause problems for people in all other countries. And ethically, it would have been better if their reply to Valve had been "What Dolphin is doing does not damage us, and it enhances the rights of people who were our customers, so we're not going to worry about technicalities; let 'em do their thing." and it probably would have been best if they said "We're going to use this opportunity to put all our relevant games up on Steam as well, so people can get them without either fiddling with old ROMs or pirating, and we can make some extra money, and gaming can be improved, and everyone can be happy."
Yes, it's certainly no worse than we would expect from Nintendo, or for that matter from many other corporations. And they did not initiate any action, which means they bear less responsibility. But none of that makes them "in the right". Sure, it's worse for someone to decide to do the wrong thing and work hard to accomplish it, than for them, when asked "Do you want to do the right thing or the wrong thing?" to merely say "The wrong thing" . . . but that second thing is still not good.
30 May 2023 at 8:04 pm UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: dibzHonestly I'm not sure why Nintendo keeps getting vilified for this, while there is a lot to be annoyed about with them, in this specific instance, they honestly seem to be in the right to me.I would say they didn't actively do anything much. And I would say they are probably not misinterpreting the law they invoke. And I would say it would be foolish to expect their answer to Valve to be different from what it was. I would even say that Dolphin were probably unwise to include the encryption key, although someone earlier in this conversation (sorry, it's been a few pages, don't feel like hunting it down) pointed out very cogently with some very solid chapter and verse that it doesn't really matter for the law if the encryption key is in there--if the software is meant to use a key to do decrypting, that already breaks the law whether the key is in there or not.
But. I wouldn't go so far as to say they are "in the right"; that's an ethical issue, not a legal one. Ethically, the law they're invoking, and particularly the section of that law they're invoking, is a bad law. And it is annoying that one country's bad law gets to cause problems for people in all other countries. And ethically, it would have been better if their reply to Valve had been "What Dolphin is doing does not damage us, and it enhances the rights of people who were our customers, so we're not going to worry about technicalities; let 'em do their thing." and it probably would have been best if they said "We're going to use this opportunity to put all our relevant games up on Steam as well, so people can get them without either fiddling with old ROMs or pirating, and we can make some extra money, and gaming can be improved, and everyone can be happy."
Yes, it's certainly no worse than we would expect from Nintendo, or for that matter from many other corporations. And they did not initiate any action, which means they bear less responsibility. But none of that makes them "in the right". Sure, it's worse for someone to decide to do the wrong thing and work hard to accomplish it, than for them, when asked "Do you want to do the right thing or the wrong thing?" to merely say "The wrong thing" . . . but that second thing is still not good.
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
30 May 2023 at 3:02 pm UTC Likes: 4
30 May 2023 at 3:02 pm UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: Mountain ManBut here is something to think about: countless works of art have been lost throughout human history, and will continue to be lost. Are we worse off as a species because of it?Yes, we bloody well are. You know that old question, what would you do if you had a time machine and could use it just once? You have no idea how many people answer that question, "Would go and rescue the books from the Library of Alexandria"; although my mother leans towards "Would go stop the fire that burned down the building that held all the Anglo Saxon literature that was ever written down".
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
30 May 2023 at 1:38 am UTC Likes: 2
30 May 2023 at 1:38 am UTC Likes: 2
I think in all this discussion of downloading pirated games, thinking of keeping things in perspective we should remember that this current situation has nothing directly to do with pirating games, or even with copyright.
What Nintendo is objecting to is that Dolphin is allegedly violating a provision of the DMCA that has to do with, well as CatKiller put it back in page 2 of this discussion:
What Nintendo is objecting to is that Dolphin is allegedly violating a provision of the DMCA that has to do with, well as CatKiller put it back in page 2 of this discussion:
Quoting: CatKillerThe particular quirk of the DMCA is that it prohibits "circumventing a technical measure" to bypass DRM even if the use isn't copyright infringement (and no matter how trivial the "technical measure" is); the Library of Congress has to regularly issue short-term (two or three years, IIRC) exemptions for particular applications.So yeah, doing that is (probably, mostly) illegal in the US (but not most other places) under the DMCA (which is a stupid law), but it isn't that anyone is alleging Dolphin is infringing anyone's copyright, let alone pirating anything.
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
30 May 2023 at 1:13 am UTC Likes: 3
30 May 2023 at 1:13 am UTC Likes: 3
Quoting: scaineHmmm, yes. Now if Nintendo were smart, they'd use this opportunity to put up their games on Steam. As has been pointed out on GoL in other contexts, pirating games tends to disappear when the non-pirating user experience is superior. Whether or not it's currently true that most users of emulators pirate the games to emulate (I have no idea myself, having basically zero connection to the emulation scene), a fresh new batch of Dolphin users on Steam with instant access to the games to use with Dolphin, on Steam, would probably just buy them rather than try to figure out how to run around to janky websites and fiddle around.Quoting: Purple Library GuySure, but that's not the experience. You download Dolphin... now what? Now you need to rip games off your cartridges, or more likely, source them from dubious sources. My point being that if you're committed to emulation, running a flatpak on your SteamDeck is no big deal.Quoting: scaineI would have figured that the main difference of having it available on Steam with no muss and no fuss would be precisely that a whole lot of people who are not "comfortable with tinkering with emulation" would be comfortable just downloading something from Steam.Quoting: EikeUsually, I'd agree, but I think any crowd comfortable with tinkering with emulation will be absolutely fine booting into desktop mode to install a flatpak. I'm not much a tinkerer, but Liam's article on adding Decky Loader support is so easy to follow and complete that it's absolutely trivial. I doubt many emulation fans will even care that Dolphin is off Steam.Quoting: ripper81358I use Dolphin myself. Having it available on steam is not critical to me. I have Dolphin installed as a flatpak on my end. So any steamdeck user can easily install it that way too.That's just not how most people will use such a device IMHO.
However, I wasn't aware that this somehow magically enabled cloud-saves, as Arale-senpai pointed out, so that's definitely a loss.
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
29 May 2023 at 7:20 pm UTC Likes: 3
29 May 2023 at 7:20 pm UTC Likes: 3
Quoting: EikeI would say the usage for "most" does not include "just over 50%". You gotta be getting into the three quarters range to be "most".Quoting: Purple Library GuyMost people are female, so I assume you're female?Quoting: EikeNo, I don't really think it's that huge. "Most people doing X are Y" is enough that for any given person doing X, you would assume they're a Y. So as an insult or an instigation of a moral panic, it's pretty much equivalent.Quoting: Purple Library Guy"Most" and "all" is a huge difference, and you know that.Quoting: EikeQuoting: benstor214“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”I can't remember somebody saying this. Could you cite it please?Quoting: Mountain ManRight, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games". :tongue:
<spock>Highly illogical.</spock>
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
29 May 2023 at 5:44 pm UTC Likes: 1
29 May 2023 at 5:44 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: scaineI would have figured that the main difference of having it available on Steam with no muss and no fuss would be precisely that a whole lot of people who are not "comfortable with tinkering with emulation" would be comfortable just downloading something from Steam.Quoting: EikeUsually, I'd agree, but I think any crowd comfortable with tinkering with emulation will be absolutely fine booting into desktop mode to install a flatpak. I'm not much a tinkerer, but Liam's article on adding Decky Loader support is so easy to follow and complete that it's absolutely trivial. I doubt many emulation fans will even care that Dolphin is off Steam.Quoting: ripper81358I use Dolphin myself. Having it available on steam is not critical to me. I have Dolphin installed as a flatpak on my end. So any steamdeck user can easily install it that way too.That's just not how most people will use such a device IMHO.
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
29 May 2023 at 5:28 pm UTC Likes: 4
29 May 2023 at 5:28 pm UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: EikeNo, I don't really think it's that huge. "Most people doing X are Y" is enough that for any given person doing X, you would assume they're a Y. So as an insult or an instigation of a moral panic, it's pretty much equivalent.Quoting: Purple Library Guy"Most" and "all" is a huge difference, and you know that.Quoting: EikeQuoting: benstor214“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”I can't remember somebody saying this. Could you cite it please?Quoting: Mountain ManRight, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games". :tongue:
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
29 May 2023 at 7:02 am UTC Likes: 3
29 May 2023 at 7:02 am UTC Likes: 3
Quoting: EikeQuoting: benstor214“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”I can't remember somebody saying this. Could you cite it please?
Quoting: Mountain ManRight, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games". :tongue:
Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam
28 May 2023 at 2:49 am UTC Likes: 5
28 May 2023 at 2:49 am UTC Likes: 5
Quoting: Mountain ManOh, come on, Mountain Man, they're a big corporation! That's like saying you're not convinced a politician is lying!Quoting: Desum"B-but these other companies are bad too"I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
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