Nintendo is at it again as it recently served a takedown notice to one of its fans.
A Kotaku report mentioned that the Japanese video game developer's lawyers sent a takedown notice to an online archiving platform regarding the scanned copies of a guidebook to Super Mario 64, an ancient 1996 game.
The guidebook in question has not been commercially available for decades.
Nintendo's Takedown Notice Details
According to Kotaku's report, Nintendo sent a takedown notice to online archiving platform Internet Archives, demanding its operators to remove from their platform a scanned copy of a Super Mario 64 guidebook previously published in 1996.
The guidebook, titled "Super Mario 64 Complete Clear Guide Book," was released in tandem with Nintendo's Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 and was only sold in Japan back then, and it never reached the other side of the Pacific or anywhere since. It has also not been commercially available for decades, meaning that people interested in obtaining a copy would have to spend hundreds on obe through online stores like eBay or Yahoo.
The "Super Mario 64 Complete Clear Guide Book" is not just a regular guidebook. It contains pictures of 3D dioramas of the game's levels that show where players should go, like a 3D game map.
Nintendo commissioned these dioramas for this game guide, per a separate Kotaku article.
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The guidebook also contains the developers' commentary on the game, such as the one with Shigeru Miyamoto talking about his child getting a chance to playtest the game while it was in development.
"We had a row of about 10 middle schoolers, and had them play around on the King Bomb-omb's stage for half a day, while we observed from behind," Miyamoto said, according to the commentary's translation. "My child was one of them actually..."
Kotaku mentioned that the guidebook's scans were not for profit and are instead for archival and recreation purposes only. However, that didn't stop Nintendo's lawyers from sending its takedown notice.
The Uploader's Reaction
The notice was first given to the online archiving platform's operator, Internet Archive, where the scans were hosted. Internet Archive then passed the notice to the scan's uploader, Comfort Food Video Games (CFVG), who said to Kotaku that Nintendo of America challenged the copyright of the scan and that they would have loved to dispute the legitimacy of the company's challenge.
"Frankly, I'd love to challenge the legitimacy of that and how Nintendo of America would have anything to do with a Nintendo of Japan licensed Gem Books guide from 1995, but I can't really fight the Nintendo legal team here. It's really disappointing," CFVG said.
CFVG then added that despite him understanding the need to protect one's intellectual property and copyrights he didn't think he was hurting anyone by scanning and uploading the 27-year-old guide. He mentioned in his statement that he thought the scans would help Nintendo while only hurting the people selling the guide for "huge amounts" of money and that all he wanted to do was "spread [his] love of this incredible guide and to a larger extent, my love for the company."
Internet Archives has since removed the scans and the link to them no longer works.
Nintendo has a history of taking down fan games and fan art over the past few years due to their "low tolerance" for them using their intellectual properties.
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