Nintendo has served Valve with a DMCA notice in order to block a Wii emulator releasing on Steam.
The team behind the emulator Dolphin released a statement yesterday, confirming that Nintendo had issued a cease and desist demand, prompting Valve to unlist the software from its store.
As reviewed by our friends over at PC Gamer, the legal notice – which directly addressed Valve's legal department – stated that "because the Dolphin emulator violates Nintendo's intellectual property rights", Valve had an "obligation to remove the offering of the Dolphin emulator from the Steam store".
"The Dolphin emulator operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s authorization and decrypting the ROMs at or immediately before runtime," the demand continues. "Thus, use of the Dolphin emulator unlawfully 'circumvent[s] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under' the Copyright Act."
Valve has seemingly obliged, and if you now click the link for Dolphin's Steam page, you'll be unceremoniously redirected to the store's landing page.
Interestingly, it appears that the emulator developers themselves have not been contacted by Nintendo. Instead, they were notified "by Valve" of the takedown notice".
"It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed," the emulator team said via a brief statement.
"We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.
"We appreciate your patience in the meantime."
