Nintendo Really Is Out of Touch

[Jumpin]

Illusion said:

As far as shutting down ROM sites like in this case, I accept that this is Nintendo's right, although I think how they are handling it is antiquated and it makes them even more out of touch with their fanbase and makes them look like a greedy, authoritarian corporate entity crushing a little guy instead of a fun family company that everybody has fond memories of. I rarely see Sony or Sega running these kinds of lawsuits and I am sure that there are way better ways to handle this in the 21st century then what Nintendo does.  Most of Nintendo's fanbase (including myself) don't see downloading ROMs for 20-30 year old consoles as being worse than jay-walking on a secondary road at 2:00 AM in the morning and Nintendo should tread carefully with these kinds of suites as the message of fear that they are trying to spread can really blow back on them nowadays. If I were Nintendo, I probably wouldn't touch these sites unless they were pirating games for active consoles and if I did so, I would handle it as quietly as possible and settle outside of court while showing maximum leniency to the perpretator (and certainly not levy 2 million dollars in damages against some average Joe who won't see that kind of money if they worked for a 100 years).

That said, what I have much greater issue with is Nintendo's position that you cannot even make backups of games that you own. Nintendo and other corporations are part of the reason why the legitimacy of making personal backups for archival/format shifting has been basically nullified with new rules prohibiting bypassing DRM. Stupid courts in US and Canada (thanks in large parts to suites that were launched by Nintendo) have even held that the physical shape of a Nintendo cartridge constitutes DRM and you cannot extract the ROM even if there is no digital encryption of the content, whatsoever. Honestly, this is corporate fascism and is a violation of a person's basic right to private property. In other words, retro gamers have to become criminals to be able to play any game they own from gen 5 and earlier since these carts are all 20+ years old and just playing the carts can ruin them. Case in point, I had a Star Wars Shadows of the Empire cart and a Dragon Warrior cart both fail on me this year just by powering up the ROM chip. Apart from downloading the ROM, backing up a carts is the only way that a person can safely play these titles especially since a lot of these games have not been released on eShops. Thanks to Nintendo, both downloading and backing up ROMs are both viewed the same which only makes me feel even more accepting of those who download ROMs.

A lot of misconceptions in your post. Let me break them down.

• Buying an item with copyrighted material on it does not make you the copyright holder. The copyright material remains the property of the creator/owner. You are certainly not entitled to copy and distribute someone else’s property.

• Copyright laws exist because copying and distributing stuff violates the rights of the creator/owner of the property, and undermines their ability to use/distribute it the way they want to. Nintendo is the creator of their stuff, not you; Nintendo has the right to sell their stuff and use it however they want, you don’t have the right to decide that for them.

• Nintendo didn’t invent copyright or trademark laws, these are the results of the legal systems of the country you live in.

• Assigning a random data point like “20 years old” doesn’t justify your position. The laws of your country determine how many years until a copyright expires, not your opinion.

• They also didn’t “crush” him for being a “little guy” they sued him for damages because he was profiting by pirating Nintendo’s property.

• If Nintendo sets a precedent for allowing pirates to distribute/sell Nintendo’s property, and even profit off of them like this guy you’re defending, then the precedent would allow Apple and Microsoft to do so.

• Being a company that serves families does not mean Nintendo can’t also have legal rights. You do realize both these things can and should exist?

• Nintendo’s ownership over their own property is not removed because you want stuff for free. And even if your made-up claim that “most Nintendo fans agree” was true, that is not a valid argument against Nintendo’s legal rights.

• Calling yourself a “Nintendo fan” does not give you the justification to decide how Nintendo’s copyrights are used. Besides, it’s not up to fans to decide how someone else’s creation should be used or distributed, it’s up to the creator. 

• Defending copyrights and trademarks is neither antiquated, greedy, authoritative, nor fascist. These are all unsubstantiated attacks your making, not valid arguments.

Your post falls apart with a basic application of reason and reality. I’m not seeing someone making some kind of rational argument against the tyranny of copyright law, but you’re not doing that, you’re attacking Nintendo for protecting their property from rampant piracy.

Nintendo’s not greedy for doing that, as a creator they have rights to defend the properties they created. You’re the greedy one. Your motivation doesn’t come from anything relating to justice, but from selfishness and entitlement to properties that don’t belong to you.