Because of Nintendo, Dolphin Must Be Blocked from Steam

Dolphin on Steam releases have been delayed indefinitely. (photo: dock.nintendo)

JAKARTA - The developer behind the open-source GameCube and Wii emulator, Dolphin had to face an indefinite delay in its release on Steam due to a warning from Nintendo.

Where, Nintendo filed a complaint citing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations to Steam owner Valve, which resulted in the Dolphin store being removed from Steam.

"It is with great disappointment that we have to announce that the release of Dolphin on Steam has been postponed indefinitely. We were informed by Valve that Nintendo has issued a discontinuance and discontinuance quoting DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until this issue is resolved," said Dolphin.

"We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future."

Pierre Bourdon, who has been involved with Dolphin for more than 10 years in various capacities stated in a post on Mastodon, that one element of what Nintendo might point to in justifying its request to block Dophin lies in the distribution of AES-128 Wii disk encryption.

Instead of asking the user to provide their own key, the software shipped with the Wii's public key embedded in the source code for years.

If Nintendo's warning is under the DMCA, such takedown notice must be sent to service provider Valve and must then notify the alleged infringer.

However, because this letter is only a warning and not a notification of specific copyright infringement, it does not follow the DMCA takedown mechanism.

In standard takedown situations, the Dolphin development team still has the option to file a counter notification with Valve, if it is reasonably certain the emulator is not in violation of the DMCA.

However, if the team files a countersuit, as explained by the Copyright Alliance, Nintendo will have two weeks to decide whether to sue. Otherwise, Dolphin could potentially be added back to Steam.

Valve, voluntarily chose to remove the Steam Dolphin store page based solely on a warning from Nintendo, which means the only way for Dolphin to return to Steam, is to enter into discussions with Valve. This was quoted from PC Gamer and The Verge, Tuesday, May 30.