They also noted that unauthorized streams of illegally obtained (and) unreleased games compromise Nintendo’s prerelease marketing, which is an offense Keighin allegedly committed over 50 times, infringing copyright of 10 different Nintendo titles in the process.ľlľ
Come on… We are not talking about streamimg an old game (modified or not) on an emulator.
The guy played a game before it was even released and streamed it… And not only once, but with 10 different games. What an idiot… Was probably warned and ignored it, just like the court hearing…
If he didn’t sign an NDA, then this sounds like a bullshit suit.
It could be counted as IP infringement, corporate espionage, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, trademark abuse, and I’m sure various other things an actual lawyer would know.
I hate large companies and corporations, I think Nintendo is extremely horrible with a lot of their practices, especially regarding abandonware, archiving, and emulation, but when someone commits various crimes, especially unapologetically and without a just cause, they’re still a criminal.
This is a case of a selfish prick of a man being a criminal against a selfish prick of a company.
Edit: oh and of course, piracy. (Sail the seas fellas, just not in plain view)
So? Maybe there’s a case against him for regular piracy, but streaming a game pre-release doesn’t seem like anything remotely close to copyright infringement. If anything, it’s journalism and protected speech.
If a leak causes damage to Nintendo’s marketing plans, then Nintendo shouldn’t have let it leak in the first place. That’s negligence on their part.
Of course idk the full story here. Not showing up to court and handing Nintendo a default judgement is stupid.
If something that would normally be copyrightable is leaked, then the only people who have legal rights to that work are still the original owners. Anyone taking/sharing it is breaching copyright.
Different case for something someone recorded/created themselves, ex recording police abuse on their phone.
I know some people have a misguided view of “But you didn’t register copyright, it’s not copyrighted”. That’s the opposite of how it works. Rights are granted at time of creation; copyright is a “granted” right as part of sale/viewing managing how something can be shared.
Otherwise, a photographer that takes a picture of a rare Snipe can have that photo “legally” stolen before they make it to a lawyer.
If something that would normally be copyrightable is leaked, then the only people who have legal rights to that work are still the original owners. Anyone taking/sharing it is breaching copyright.
It’s like you’re trying really hard to contort the discussion to make it seem like Nintendo has solid a case here. All the protections you’re talking about apply to works regardless of when or how they’re released. From the point of view of copyright law, a “leaked” recording of a game is no different from a regular recording of a game. Afaik, the guy in the OP isn’t being accused of sharing leaked game files.
If you’re trying to say that a recording of a video game is not considered fair use under copyright law, then I give you the existence of Youtube and Twitch as counter evidence.
I know some people have a misguided view…
Maybe, but I don’t see how that’s relevant here, unless you’re implying I have that misconception. If that’s the case, please point out which part of my comment lead you to this conclusion.
If you’re trying to say that a recording of a video game is not considered fair use under copyright law, then I give you the existence of Youtube and Twitch as counter evidence.
So, funny you should say that…
This happened to Persona 5. Atlus felt that they had a legal basis to make copyright claims on the game - in their case, circumstantially around spoilers (I guess because they wanted people to pay $50 to experience the late-game story)
And they walked back, not because lawyers were dismantling their case, but because of public outcry. That basis of public preference is what has encouraged game studios to be friendly with Twitch / YouTube, not because judges would rubber-stamp any fair use “transformative work” argument. That is also why many games have given explicit notices to say “Content notice: Please feel free to share videos of this game wherever you’d like!” etc - as it is a non-default judgment.
So, as strange as it is to say, most uploaded videos of a game is in some murky legal territory. Obviously, most studios don’t care and even prefer them to be shared for visibility - or took the time to include those notices to make it 100% legal. But when the recording came from an internal build, the game itself is “stolen”, in that the person playing it breached either terms of viewing or terms of employment, and then the person re-uploading it is breaching copyright as they had no permission.
If you want to work it through the other way, permission to upload a work is non-default. You need to provide a basis it’s legal, not a basis it’s illegal. In many cases, it’s “I made this”. For 99.9% of video game content, it’s “the developer is okay with it”.
We’re both armchair lawyering, so I don’t feel like continuing this discussion. I’ll just quote a part of your comment that I think is silly, both in the claim that is being made, and the confidence with which it is being made:
So, as strange as it is to say, most uploaded videos of a game is in some murky legal territory.
sane companies “leak” their upcoming games to influencerson purpose as part of their marketing strategy.
nintendo, once again, chooses to treat their most dedicated fans like shit.
For all its shit with killing fan projects, tournaments, and frivolous lawsuits, this is actually a legitimate case.
And yet, because of all that other shit, I still don’t support Nintendo.
Of course not. An asshole who’s right is still an asshole.
Is this the dumbass thay was streaming the unreleased games that got leaked?
Not defending Nintendo one bit here, but like, you made your own bed with that one dickhead.
Not really, they’re asking for default without actually serving the person and that just isn’t how our justice system works.
Headline says he ignored a court summons. Do you even understand what it means to be served (a court summons)???
A summons still has to be served in civil court meaning actually made aware generally by a hand to hand transfer. There is no mention of that happening and court dates proceed regardless of actual service unless the court moves out preemptively or the other party motions to move it forward to affect service.
So the question is do you know the difference between service and summons and the interplay between them.
all my homies hate Nintendo.
Nintendo doesn’t care if you emulate old games on stream.
They do if it’s a live event which I don’t really get. Modded smash bros is just not okay at live events but hacked Mario World was at GDQ.
All that aside these games were not only new, but unreleased. He literally could have contributed to lost sales from potential buyers watching the games before they were released.
If they went after some SMW hacker emulating a three decade old game, sure. But they didn’t.
I don’t normally victim-blame, but streaming an unreleased game is really asking for it.
It’s one thing to pirate a game for yourself. That’s just called being poor or being someone who doesn’t believe in copyright. The only party who can argue they’re being harmed is the developer, who may or may not have received a sale otherwise.
It’s another thing to pirate an unreleased game and stream it for others. If you do that and receive ad revenue or donations, you’re profiting off of someone else’s work. Not only that, but you’re also harming the console modding community by incentivizing the publisher to go after homebrew developers and emulator developers. It wasn’t a coincidence that shortly after some asshat streamed an unreleased Zelda game being played on Yuzu, Nintendo decided to finally come down on the emulator with an iron fist.
In conclusion, between pirating a game to enjoy yourself and pirating a game to play on a for-profit streaming platform, one of those two things is morally gray and the other is someone being a selfish fuck.
I got banned from Xbox live until year 9999 cause one of the Halo games leaked and I had a modded Xbox. I didn’t play online and I didn’t stream anything. But my account it accrued achievements. And those fuckers are dated. Lol. Connected the ol Xbox 360 back to the internet to watch Netflix a few months later not thinking about it. And RIP lol
Not only that, but you’re also harming the console modding community by incentivizing the publisher to go after homebrew developers and emulator developers. It wasn’t a coincidence that shortly after some asshat streamed an unreleased Zelda game being played on Yuzu, Nintendo decided to finally come down on the emulator with an iron fist.
There’s plenty of ways to stop piracy, Nintendo just doesn’t want you to play outside their walled garden. They could choose to facilitate emulation and let you buy their games from emulators and prevent piracy while not hindering emulation. They could choose to port their games to other platforms. But no, they crack down on emulation because it hurts their bottom line if people don’t have to buy a switch - or whatever to play their games. Fuck Nintendo.
Don’t get me wrong: Nintendo deserves no sympathy here. They could do many things to make their games more accessible, but they chose not to.
That’s not to say asshats like this deserves any either, though. The homebrew community and emulator developers step in to make Switch software interoperable, and they end up being the ones getting screwed over by both Nintendo and the people who provoked Nintendo.
the people who provoked Nintendo.
This is my problem with your argument, you’re saying that because of piracy they’re entitled to crack down on emulation. Piracy is just a pretext they’re using here. Emulation is legal and yet they’re doing everything in their power to stop it from happening, this has nothing to do with piracy.
Emulation is legal
Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward anymore. Emulation of modern consoles exists in a legal gray area that may or may not be illegal under the DMCA.
With something like the Switch, the ROMs are encrypted in a way that they can only be unencrypted with keys that are derived from data baked into the console itself. Yuzu for example is still protected as an emulator for some hardware/software platform, but it wouldn’t be able to run retail games without being able to decrypt the ROMs.
And that’s kind of the problem. Creating tools for preservation and interoperability is permitted by the DMCA, but tools that are made in part or whole to bypass DRM measures is explicitly not. That conflict hasn’t been tested in court either, so the first ruling is going to be the one that sets the precedent.
This is my problem with your argument, you’re saying that because of piracy they’re entitled to crack down on emulation.
My argument isnt that they’re entitled to crack down on emulation because of piracy. My argument is that people blatantly and publicly using emulators to play pirated, unreleased games emboldens Nintendo.
I believe Nintendo isn’t willing to test that gray area in court without having something to support their anti-emulation position. What they want to do is bully devs into settling because it’s a low-risk way to kill development on the emulator without opening up that can of worms that could make Switch emulators unambiguously legal. But, the more evidence Nintendo gets to support their argument, the more confident they become in thinking they would end up winning if they don’t get that settlement.
Keep in mind that when they did finally go after Yuzu’s devs, they went after them for creating software to circumvent the Switch’s DRM (that gray area I mentioned) and not for creating an emulator. If they were actually confident in thinking the legal answer to “is an emulator that decrypts ROMs illegal” was “yes,” they would’ve just went after Yuzu a long time ago instead of waiting 7 years into the console lifestyle.
He literally could have contributed to lost sales from potential buyers watching the games before they were released.
By allowing consumers to be better informed of what they might have otherwise purchased?
Well yeah, that will be their argument and legally it’s a good argument.
By broadcasting spoilers and making playing the game pointless.
There’s never a point in playing a game if you can’t beat it the same day it is released, by that stupid argument.
When you play a game on release date that wasn’t leaked, spoilers and stuff surface on the internet at an average pace. Players who wait a long time to play the game will have this similar experience.
Leaked content spreads like wildfire as the posters know it’ll most likely be taken down, and well, streisand effect. All communities for the game will be flooded with untagged spoilers before the game is even out. I bet that streamer was basically speedrunning the games to leak as much as possible, which most players who just enjoy the game won’t do.
Either way, the money asked for is a lot, yes, however pirating and broadcasting unreleased games is a very stupid crime.
You can avoid these kind of spoilers without much difficulty.
I still don’t even know what game he was playing when he got caught.
This argument is nonsense. Why don’t they go after regular review channels and streamers? What difference does it make that the game is streamed before release vs after?
Nintendo isn’t your friend. Every minute you waste defending their honor online can instead be spent finding real friends IRL
Before release is before everyone gets a chance at playing it themselves. This person also isn’t a professional reviewer or journalist so their content isn’t beneficial to the consumer either. Before also releases spoilers that will be near impossible to avoid once they’re out. And what’s the point of playing the hot new game if you already know the story?
I call Nintendo my angel of salvation and the mother I never had, but I’m just being realistic. Streaming (actually) pirated new games actually does cause damage. Most likely not as much as Nintendo is suing for, but damages nonetheless.
If they were suing for streaming Super Mario World romhacks, especially in 2025 where SMW is old enough to be a dad or the United States President, and is NOT being actively sold, then yeah, I’d disagree. Even if one were to pull “but it’s on Switch Online” or some silly nonsense.
I call Nintendo my angel of salvation and the mother I never had, but I’m just being realistic.
Upvoting just for this.
Nintendo actually saved my life, not joking or exaggerating.
You’re actually unwell then. Seek professional help because Nintendo is not your friend. This is going to blow up in your face some day, and it is going to end poorly for you.
Mental health issues are complicated and suicide is awful, and idk you or your situation. Whatever happened, it’s good that you’re still here, but this religious devotion to a corporation is fucking disgusting. When you find out that Nintendo employees laugh at people like you during their lunch breaks, will you still feel like they’re your angels? How much labor have you given to them, both in the form of money you earned to buy their products, and online activity to defend their honor?
Don’t give yourself to a corporation like this. If you were saved, Nintendo weren’t the ones who did it.
Nintendo continues to demonstrate why my personal boycott continues. What a shitty company.
I guess “Fuck around and find out” doesn’t apply here.
Don’t forget to mention bootlicking in your replies, lemmys.
Oh, it really bothers you that you can’t stream games before they’ve been released? It’s Nintendo’s fault, for everything, all the time! So much entitlement.
What’s even more funny is that you’re downvoted into oblivion, while Iheartcheese @lemmy.world gets praise for the same stance.
Bait 🎣
There should be no restrictions on video game streaming. To hell with the poor corporation and their “pre-release marketing”.
all these n-letter company dramas streisand-effect’ed me into being interested in legal switch emulation - I never knew you can even play switch online perfectly legal on PC if there’s enough gamers backing up a justified defence against lawsuit-bully attempts by those suits
but yeah this guy here not the brighest light, is he
Dipshit was streaming games that hadn’t even been released yet.
Good, that’s exactly what Shitendo deserves
Well he sure showed them, didn’t he?
Well sadly he got caught.
He got caught cuz he was a dumbass
Is it possible to legally rip my games without a modded switch? I’ve been interested too but haven’t been able to get my hands on a modded switch.
Better question: would it be legal if you couldn’t
Mig flash dumper and a mig flash cart
However, as Keighin did not show up to court,
bro quite literally played the “sorry mario, the princess in another castle” card at them.
Did they spring for Dolby vision/atmos this time or cheaped out again?
With the price they expect for games now, it’s going to get a lot worse for them.
Why is everyone pretending like they have a right to play Nintendo games? Nintendo says they want $X, you say their game isn’t worth $X, so you get something different instead. What’s the problem?
If you’re at a flea market and can’t reach an agreement on the price, do you just throw a tantrum at the vendor and take their stuff anyway?
It’s not a flea market. It’s a company that targets kids. Their prices are ludicrous, and will end up in another 3DS moment.
I rather hope for a PS Vita moment.
It’s a company that targets kids. Their prices are ludicrous
How does any of this make a difference?
Also for a company targeting kids there sure are a lot of whiny adults in these conversations.
they are literally behaving like apple.
and if theres no eu to regulate them fast enough, there will be free feast (keep in mind consuming games is very present in the culture of society in 2025) for predatory practices like price gauging or denying accessibility through emulation. Whats next, paying for voice chat? and after that, id verification and giving up all data rights for that as requirement to boot the consoles? all that while literally doing this in the most aggressive forms
You are comparing removing a physical object from a person to copying some data onto a flash drive.
Do you want to be the kind of guy that gets a portrait commissioned of yourself, get a watermarked preview version, then balks at the price the artist asks for, reject the work, refuse to pay the artist, AND THEN use the watermarked preview version for your profile picture anyway?
A better analogy would be if I printed out a copy of a painting I like.
I don’t control which games Nintendo makes. If I did, we’d have a sequel to Majora’s Mask and Mario Galaxy 3.
Are you saying that the data has no value just because you can’t touch it?
If it had no value then no one would want it.
What if you own the copy but also have a copy
He was streaming an unreleased copy. Good luck owning that.
What if he had preordered the game?
what a sad life it must be to be the legal bully for a toy company, imagine wasting your life like that
spoiler
sdfgdsggdsf
Yeah, the two aren’t mutually exclusive; Nintendo is a shitty litigious company and the dude is a fucking idiot. The first rule of Switch piracy is that you don’t talk about Switch piracy, and this dude was blatantly streaming a game that hadn’t even released yet.
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Yeah, broadcasting to the world that you’re playing a game that hasn’t been released yet isn’t a great idea. Particularly when it’s Nintendo. It’s pretty common knowledge how petty they are even with stuff that’s less flagrant
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why did you reply at me with a boot hanging out of your mouth
Yeah man we get it, piracy good, laws bad, yar har and all that shit. This guy’s still an idiot, and so is anybody defending him.
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