The Dolphin emulator development team that allows you to run games on your PC from the Nintendo GameCube and Wii consoles, made a statement about the fate of the version of its utility for the digital distribution service Steam.
Image source: Nintendo
Keep in mind that Dolphin was expected to be released on Steam before the end of June, but in May there were reports that Valve had received a DMCA complaint from Nintendo. As a result, the release of Dolphin on Steam has been indefinitely delayed and the store page has been removed.
As the developers explained, Nintendo hasn’t actually filed a DMCA complaint with Valve. Valve itself contacted Nintendo’s lawyers with a request regarding the announcement of Dolphin for Steam and received a response.
Image source: dolphin
Citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Nintendo asked Valve not to release Dolphin on Steam. In order to release the service, Valve required the developers to strike an agreement with Nintendo.
The team considered such a result impossible given Nintendo’s negative attitude towards emulators, so decided not to release Dolphin on Steam. Some features prepared for Steam version will be implemented in regular builds.
Image source: Steam
In addition, after consulting lawyers, the authors stated that using Dolphin keys to decrypt Wii games is not against the law (however, this can be interpreted differently) and are ready to defend this position in court if necessary.
According to the developers, there are no legal problems with Dolphin. The team came to this conclusion due to the fact that Nintendo did not make any demands in its letter to Valve, but simply asked that the emulator not be released on Steam.
Add Comment