Performative Anti-Piracy

Draft • November 30, 2025

Something you probably know by now in Nintendo communities, homebrew especially, is that everyone is very scared of 'the big N'. Don't get me wrong, Nintendo is quite the watchdog in IP but sometimes it isn't quite warranted. Let me show you.

Warranted 

I'd like to shed some light on some projects that deserve to keep their stance after what they have been through. Dolphin Emulator has received quite the legal battle from Nintendo with the Wii Common Key being released on the Steam platform.¹ Thought I also should say that this seemed to be their only case they were involved with as they released it on a major platform. 

And I'm not even gonna start heading into the current generation of Nintendo Switch because we all know how disorganized it is, and this is for the lesser pirates that niche communities despise from the outside.

Who gives a Wii?

Where to even start? First I'll say that most of WiiLink is fairly piracy-infused but that is because their server was formerly owned by RiiConnect24, which got taken over around 2 years ago.

I'll now go over some hypocrisy.

Over at WiiLink, the staff were in a asynchronous mix about whether their piracy rule was limiting either files, links, and such, or even discussion and telling.

[screenshots here]

This was probably due to the fact that some staff undoubtedly pirated, so I'll go into why some moderators were demonizing your copy of Mario Kart DS (USA).nds with this next section.

Squeaky clean!

It could be the threat of getting taken down, it could be...something more.

I should also mention the half the flak we (as in a piracy shop staff) get is because the piracy shops are simply using their open-source software and just rehosting it with downloads. So there is that, take it as using software in a way that the author wants or take it as people forking software that is open.



¹https://www.pcgamer.com/after-being-kicked-off-steam-dolphin-emulator-devs-say-nintendos-legal-claim-is-a-reach-now-that-we-have-talked-to-a-lawyer-we-are-no-longer-concerned/