Steam Developer Valve Informed Nintendo About the Dolphin Emulator, Reveals Internal Emails

Nintendo has recently blocked the Dolphin Emulator ahead of its release on Steam. It was earlier reported that a DMCA takedown request was sent to Valve for carrying out the ban. It has now been revealed that it was Valve that informed Nintendo about the emulator in the first place. Nintendo did not send a typical DMCA takedown request which explains why Dolphin Emulator could not contest Valve’s decision to remove it from Steam. Dolphin Emulator has been built for running games made for Nintendo Wii and GameCube consoles through emulation on PC.

Valve’s Initiative

The Verge reported the Dolphin Team provided them with information which highlights it was Valve who informed Nintendo about them. Valve also did not deny those claims and told Verge they took the initiative due to Nintendo’s history of taking actions against emulators. Valve spokesperson Kaci Aitchison Boyle said, “Given Nintendo’s history of taking action against some emulators, we brought this to their attention proactively after the Dolphin team announced it was coming soon to Steam.”

Verge also received access to the emails Nintendo sent to Valve. The first paragraph of that email starts with Nintendo thanking Valve “for bringing the announced offering of the Dolphin emulator on Valve’s Steam store to Nintendo’s attention”.

DMCA Takedown Request Explained

That’s not all though. The second paragraph of the email highlights the DMCA takedown request. The Verge’s Sean Hollister explained that the typical DMCA Section 512 is typically used for copyright infringement and it allows platforms (like Steam in this case) to avoid liability by taking down the copyrighted content swiftly.

However, the notice sent by Nintendo dealt with DMCA Section 1201. This section states that a company (Valve in this case) cannot host copyright circumvention technology. This reveals that Nintendo did not threaten Dolphin Emulator with a lawsuit, they did so to Valve which also explains why Valve complied with it and the emulator did not get a chance to contest this.