Nintendo Issues DMCA Takedowns On Emulation Tools, Presumably In Response to Tears of the Kingdom Leaks
Posted on May 08 2023 by Rod Lloyd
In the face of the recent leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Nintendo seems to be escalating its fight against the emulation community.
As first reported by GBAtemp, Nintendo has allegedly issued multiple DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices to popular file-sharing website GitHub, particularly targeting emulation tools Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM. Developer and security researcher Simon Aarons took to Twitter last week to share copies of the DMCA takedown requests issued by Nintendo over the two programs in question. While Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM were the subjects of these DMCA requests, other projects may be affected by Nintendo’s legal posturing as well.
The alleged DMCA takedown requests shared by Aarons, as well as by Twitter user llIllIIIlII1, argue that “the reported repository offers and provides access to circumvention software that infringes Nintendo’s intellectual property rights” and that “the decrypted keys facilitate copyright infringement by permitting users to play pirated versions of Nintendo’s copyright-protected game software on systems without Nintendo’s Console TPMs or systems on which Nintendo’s Console TPMs have been disabled.”
Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM are, as explained by GBAtemp, emulation tools used to “dump unique keys from [one’s] Nintendo Switch console, which are required for numerous Switch hacking-related programs, including the Ryujinx and Yuzu Switch emulators.” As of the time of writing, Lockpick is still currently available on GitHub, though GBAtemp notes that there may be grace period before the site acts on the takedown requests.
Lockpick has been freely available for years, so it’s hard to see Nintendo’s recent actions against it as anything other than a response to the massive Tears of the Kingdom leak.
As noted by PC Gamer in their reporting of the situation, the dumping of one’s own legally obtained game files and emulating them is completely legal. The distribution and download of these files is a different story, of course; but the use of tools like Lockpick and Lockpick_RCM in and of themselves should be protected under the law.
In my opinion, these alleged DMCA takedown notices are nothing more than a scare tactic by Nintendo, as has been the case with DMCA takedown notices issued by the company targeting YouTube videos. It wasn’t that long ago that Nintendo tried to block an investigative video by Did You Know Gaming? on the grounds of copyright, only for that video to be restored by the platform under fair use. Nintendo absolutely has a right to protect its copyright and curb the piracy of its games, but targeting emulation tools themselves seems like simple intimidation to me.
Nintendo has been litigiously aggressive over the past few months following a series of high-profile leaks, most related to Tears of the Kingdom. The company just recently requested a subpoena of Discord in order to identify the individual who leaked the Tears of the Kingdom Collector’s Edition art book. Nintendo has also ramped up its attacks against the modding community in recent months, blocking several videos published by popular Breath of the Wild modder PointCrow for example.
Zelda Dungeon will continue to monitor this situation. What do you make Nintendo’s interest in emulation tools? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Simon Aarons, llIllIIIlII1 (via GBAtemp, PC Gamer)
Rod Lloyd is the Editor-In-Chief at Zelda Dungeon, overseeing the news and feature content for the site. Rod is considered the veteran of the writing team, having started writing for Zelda Informer in 2014 as a Junior Editor. After ZD and ZI officially merged in 2017, he stepped into the Managing Editor role and has helped steer the ship ever since. He stepped up to lead the writing team as Editor-In-Chief in 2023.
You can reach Rod at: rod.lloyd@zeldadungeon.net
