On May 27, the development team behind the Wii emulator and GameCube Dolphin Announce a massive barrier: Nintendo’s legal team has been moving to block the software from running on Steam. While the Dolphin team weighs its options, the project is currently “on indefinite hold”. Here’s the full quote from their blog post:
With great disappointment we have to announce that the release of Dolphin on Steam has been indefinitely delayed. We have been notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist DMCA inference against the Dolphin Steam page, and has removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently examining our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.
We appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Originally reported by PCGamer, this is not actually a DMCA takedown, just a warning from anyone. Kellen Voyer, an attorney who specializes in intellectual property and technology law, spoke with PCGamer and said, “Here, there is no claim that Valve is currently hosting anything that infringes Nintendo’s copyrights or, more broadly, that violates the DMCA. Rather From that, Nintendo is sending Valve a clear notice that it considers Dolphin to be in violation of the DMCA, and if it is released on Steam, Nintendo will likely take further action.”
Dolphin has been around for about 20 years nowIt was first developed as closed source in 2003, until it moved to open source in 2008. Last March, the team announced Plan to bring the software to Steam, which is likely to increase the number of people who can access its services. If the Dolphin developers decided to fight the Nintendo block, they would have their work cut out for them. Nintendo is known for its brutality in the courts, whether it’s shutting down fan content or paying for it Harsh punishment for pirates. In the meantime, the service is still available on the Dolphin website, since the team itself did not receive any warning directly from Nintendo.
Do you think Dolphin will be released on Steam? Let us know in the comments!
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