this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Ehhh I absolutely would blame Valve here. They don't have to endorse the project to turn their eyes and allow it to proceed.
Valve's main obligation here, as I see it (IANAL), is their trademark. With copyright, it's up to the rightsholder whether or not they want to prosecute things. With trademarks, they have an obligation to prosecute things they come across or else they might lose that trademark.
There was no pressure on Valve here, except for that trademark thing. Even then, with what they've said, they weren't looking to protect their trademark. They were just looking to avoid the minimal risk that Nintendo actually sued the developers of Portal 64, and Nintendo might include Valve in such a lawsuit. It's not like Portal 64 was being released on Valve's Steam platform, like the Dolphin emulator was.
Valve's lawyers are being excessively conservative and risk averse here. As a result, the community that Valve relies on is suffering harm. That makes these lawyers fucking assholes, in my view. They didn't have to do anything, they weren't prompted to do anything, they did it off their own back to show that they were doing something.
If Nintendo had shut them down, that would be a different thing. However, that would almost certainly only have been a cease and desist letter, sent to the developers, with no involvement with Valve. Valve's lawyers have completely jumped the gun here and done something that actually harms Valve's public image, for no tangible benefit.
Valve should sack these lawyers, they're cunts.
I'm with you on the first part. It makes no sense for Valve to do this. Using LibUltra or not, Nintendo has been relatively lax on people creating new code for the N64. At least to my recollection only in cases where Nintendo felt their IP was directly being threatened did they try and take down fan projects. Even then they heavily rely on the redistribution of Nintendo IP to take things down. Admittedly I have only seen others talking about the Portal 64 project using LibUltra but even so that's Nintendo's fight, not Valve's.
I don't see how Valve could possibly be afraid of getting sued here by Nintendo, it doesn't make sense. Valve did not create it, nor distribute, advertise, or aid in any way. IANAL but I don't see how Valve could possibly be listed as a party to the lawsuit unless Nintendo lawyers agreed with Valve lawyers to go after this guy for IP theft.
TBH I see this more as Valve seeing that with a project this publicly known, if they don't defend their IP here they'll lose any future copyright claims and want to prevent it. They also see an opportunity here, blame Nintendo who won't flinch it at since they get labelled legal bad guys all the time, no real dent to their reputation while saving Valve's internet golden child perception. Valve would never do something like this so it MUST be Nintendo's fault. Based on the comments in this thread and I've seen else where, that seems like a good assumption. Nintendo takes the heat while Valve protects their IP.
That would only apply to trademarks. Copyright has no requirement to sue to maintain the rights, but registered trademarks do.
I wonder if there was some sort of settlement between Valve and Nintendo, after Dolphin was removed from the Steam store, which requires them to support Nintendo. Even then, this is separate to the Steam store.
It does give them brownie points with Nintendo though, I guess.
Yup your right, I was wrong. Valve keeps the copyright regardless.
Dolphin situation was different though. https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/
Valve only ever insisted that Nintendo had to give Dolphin permission to distribute since Valve was afraid of a potential DMCA coming from Nintendo if Nintendo thought that the encryption keys were IP illegally being redistributed. Since Nintendo says emulators are illegal everywhere but a courtroom, Dolphin team knew that they'd never get an ok. Valve probably knew that but didn't care enough to help fight that legal battle.
I'm not sure Valve cares about brownie points with Nintendo. The Steam Deck is a direct competitor against the Switch, Valve has done nothing to curtail the use of Switch emulators on Deck, and the work Valve has been doing makes using a switch emulator a better experience.
This whole thing only makes sense if Valve wanted to protect their IP. Involving Nintendo really does sound like blame shifting without having to actually go to court
also, it's simply cheaper to say to the guy "hey, could you take down?" than even asking lawyers about the legality of the project
When it comes to their trademarks Valve can't take a fully hands-off approach without negative consequences. Either they explicitly endorse the use of the Portal name and other branding, in which case they're encouraging and aiding the project and could potentially be caught up in any lawsuit from Nintendo, or they say nothing and allow the trademark to lapse from non-enforcement, or they prohibit the project from using the Portal branding and enforce that prohibition with a lawsuit if needed. Unfortunately for the project, only one of these options retains their trademark and doesn't set them up for a fight with Nintendo.
Sure, and like I say trademark is the one obligation they have. However, there has been no indication that protecting a trademark was the driving factor. The driving factor seems to be entirely that it involves Nintendo.
Furthermore, there would be no fight with Nintendo here. Nintendo have no real grounds to sue Valve, even if Valve ignored it. Rather, it almost plays out as if Valve hope to host Nintendo software on their platform - which doesn't seem likely to ever happen.
I'm curious about the downvote. What did I say that was objectionable? Valve haven't sent a cease and desist because of an infringement against themselves, they've sent a cease and desist on behalf of Nintendo, apparently without prompt from Nintendo. That's bullshit.
Edit: Lmfao lazy lurkers downvoting without engaging... Put your balls on the table and say something.