Nintendo targets Reddit pirates in piracy crackdown

We do have a federated GitHub alternative. Perhaps not too mature yet, but it does indeed exist. Forgejo

Git is a distributed version control system. There doesn't have to be a single copy of the repo on which everything depends. It's a choice, and an understandable one, to treat one copy as authoritative, but there's no reason to despair if it becomes unavailable. Any copy of it will do.

What GitHub provides that's hard to do without it is not the repository but the stuff that goes around it: issue tracking, communication tools, discoverability, etc.

So if people take the distributed nature of Git seriously and make sure they all have a local copy of the repo, we won't lose the repo itself to Nintendo's actions. But we may lose the tools that make it easy to coordinate work on the repo.

Before we had GitHub and issue trackers we had mailing lists and Usenet groups. Not as convenient, bit they allowed people to coordinate work on open source software without a central, corporately owned point of failure. Maybe we should be looking to the early days of FOSS for ideas about how to make these projects resilient against corporate persecution. Not for the exact tools but for decentralized ways of coordinating collaboration.

If you (or anyone else) has any suggestions for emulators/tools to mirror, send them my way. I already have a few on my Forgejo server https://git.ngni.us/mirrors

Get a device or two, as well.

Your computer may very well get obsolete when it comes to software support.

A handheld or console meant to be an emulation console won't have to move through time. It'll be as it is after the day you're done setting it up, like a hacked console.

Your PC has to keep up with web standards, codecs, online goings on but dedicated, offline devices do not. I may choose an SBC to do this to, and make a copy of the partition housing the emulators and boot drive for safe keeping.

I also have two different raspberrypi emulation images. Since those are literally everywhere, it's a sure bet you'll be able to find one to put the sd card into, even years from now.

It really is too bad we dont have a federated github alternative. I know theres some projects in development, but I can see the emulator scene getting harder and harder to get into if popular repos go down. Decades of work, gone.

There is Radicle which is a peer-to-peer forge.

Edit: Don’t expect all the features of GitHub or Forgejo though.

Emulators should provide torrents for releases.

Stop making me sad sir!!!!

Link for N64?

There is no federated guthub because git itself is. Just clone the repo - you're part of the network already!

It really is too bad we dont have a federated github alternative.

There is no "open" alternative for... the exact reasons some code is removed from Github/Lab/Bucket/whatever.

Someone submits a DMCA request or something similar? Microsoft and so forth will process that and decide if it is valid and so forth.

If you are running your own instance? That request goes to you and you probably don't have lawyers or just the willpower to determine if it is valid or not.

And the federation approach further complicates that. Because good luck explaining the concept of federation to a judge who thinks everyone who uses a computer is a hacker and doesn't understand why a DMCA to one instance didn't propagate to your instance and why it is an honest mistake. All while the Nintendos of the world are arguing for your wages to be garnished for the rest of your life.

And the other aspect is what anyone who runs even a semi-public instance of... anything learns. People are monsters. If you have image uploads you will have CSAM.

And the last aspect is just practicality. My github is a large part of my CV. I work on projects that I think are fun AND that I think will look good to people I am trying to convince to give me a job. Emulation is already a grey area (it isn't quite porn, but it can make you look like a liability to many companies). But if you have to link someone to a complete no name site because you are trying to avoid legal action? You aren't getting hired.

So, Lemmy is a better place?

I always wondered what data does reddit actually have? Even if they had IPs and people posting, I'm John Smith, how exactly is Nintendo going to prove anything in a court of law? IP is not a person, and talking about shit online isn't the same as doing it.

And most of all, are they going to sue and investigate 10,000 people?

I don't get any of this fear mongering. I think this is all just aimed at shutting down communication channels, they aren't going to go after individuals talking on the internet

_

Source code too?

Kinda weird that I'm rooting for reddit, a company I hate, against Nintendo, a company that usually brings me joy.

But here we are.

Subpoenaing Reddit for user records because some guy emulated a videogame made for your crappy handheld console.

The main thing they are trying to do is make it more difficult to find this stuff via google, which tbh is still easy without reddit.

But even Switch homebrew has been a pain. Most of it is one off software made years ago because no sane dev wanted to actually keep up with all the firmware releases and limited control of CFW. Github/Gitlab repos keep getting banned left and right for tools not even related to piracy.

3DS has full fledged apps with teams behind everything and HShop which makes it very easy for everyone. Switch still doesn't have a definitive method of handling NSP/XCIs, and all the auto download internet repos are invite only to hide from Nintendo.

I'm really hoping someone finds some serious hardware bypass in their next console after what they did to the emulation scene. They really deserve to go through the insane R4 piracy age all over again for nuking everything online.

advertising them somewhere else, Tumblr, throwaway eBay listings, Spotify playlists,... here.

You missed a great opportunity to have 'here' be a link to an emulator.

Not to mention discord channels you have to be invited to.

It also helps that the golden age is over

Even the stone age is coming to an end - in favor of clay dicks. Talking about games.

"Conspiracy to ___"

Yeah I don't get certain sub rules. For example on the VPN subreddit you couldn't ask about or name ANY VPN companies. Like, what!? Then what the hell are we here for!?

I got banned from /r/Gaming years ago because in a thread about playstation emulation, I just mentioned what .BIN file is needed for the BIOS after someone asked, with a list of the files they were already looking at on a download site, because they were confused. They're own rules explicitly state discussion of emulation is okay, but direct links are not.

I think the self-censoring was moreso out of concern for upsetting the Reddit admins than it was for companies like Nintendo.

At full price and only in the switch

And don't pirate it please we are the good guys here

-Nintendo probably

Not only that. In South America, it is impossible to legally purchase digital Nintendo games. The only options are: overpriced physical copies (like, 2 or 3 times the original value), or create a US account (so, lying in the personal data) and buy prepaid cards online (also severely overpriced).

For some people, piracy is the only option.

They’ve released like 1% of the NES library on Switch and it’s been years.

Are you saying total bottoms aren't real? i have so much to teach you