Portal 64 dev says “don’t be mad at Valve” for the project’s shutdown
Portal 64 dev says “don’t be mad at Valve” for the project’s shutdown
After Portal 64 was shut down, the creator of the project says "don't be mad at Valve," while diving into the difficulty of it ever coming.
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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.
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.
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.
It's not complicated.
If you want to be able to publish something, you don't use someone else's IP.
Yeah sure, but why is Valve defending Nintendo's IP? That's my issue here.
They are not defending Nintendo's IP, they are worried about having their IP associated with proprietary Nintendo libraries. They also didn't send a cease and desist but reached out to him directly and asked him to take it down.
They also didn’t send a cease and desist but reached out to him directly and asked him to take it down.
You're right, and I should have double checked and worded it better. However, for all intents and purposes, politely asking him to take it down is the same as a cease and desist.
they are worried about having their IP associated with proprietary Nintendo libraries.
That is indeed apparent, however I still don't get it. What do they hope to gain from currying favour from Nintendo? They don't sell Nintendo games on Steam, and doing so is a pipe dream (lol sleepy Mario).
politely asking him to take it down is the same as a cease and desist.
The result is the same but there's a huge difference between getting legally threatened by a big company and being asked nicely.
What do they hope to gain from currying favour from Nintendo?
The knowledge of having zero chance to be sued by Nintendo.
The result is the same but there’s a huge difference between getting legally threatened by a big company and being asked nicely.
Not really. Asking nicely can easily be a veiled threat.
The knowledge of having zero chance to be sued by Nintendo.
But that's an excessively risk averse position to take. It doesn't even really fit for Valve, although it's common with lawyers. Hence why I don't think Valve has the right lawyers for their ethos.
They're defending their IP.
They're really wildly permissive with their IP, but combining it with other people's you also don't own is very obviously over the line.
I'm pretty confident if someone combined Valve's IP with anyone else's this would not have happened.
This is laughable.
If someone was making a valve game with spiderman in it, the same thing would happen. They're only going to ignore it if the other owner has a pattern of being OK with it, and even then they might want written permission.
....... Have you ever played Garry's Mod?
Edit: Lol, I wrote that before I looked it up: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1384628469