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2:05 For the record, finding the contact information inside the arcade's ROM was a big deal back then, you couldn't just download it, there was no Internet yet, you'd have had to dump the actual chips from the actual hardware, and even that would've been inaccessible to most people since, again, there was no Internet, so there were no devices you could use to extract data from the ICs. If someone _did_ manage to find that data back then, they'd be _very_ skilled, hence the job offer.
It was not that hard to read the data from the chips (and yes, they had devices to read that data, it was much simpler than today….and they don’t need the internet for such things). Also the offer was plain text, so you don’t even needed any programming experience.
@@MabuseXX "it wad much simpler than today" I highly doubt that. Today i can just download a rom and a hex editor and voila. If not, there are specific tools for that today that you can get by the click of a button.
@@MabuseXX @Richter WLK is correct. There weren't commercial devices for accessing arcade hardware (if there were, Nintendo probably wouldn't have needed to outsource conversion kits in the first place) and for anyone who follow hardware hacking, it often requires fabrication of equipment, a lot of fine soldering skills and tracing of circuits to find the desired ones. For something like this to happen, someone would need to essentially cannibalize one of these arcade cabinet's roms, possibly the board too, and create a from scratch interface board that could be connected to a PC (which at the time would likely have been a mess of wires to a PCI card, PCI-e in the grand scheme of things is relatively new in computers, and such a USB device isn't likely either at the time, so oldschool pci or perhaps serial?) An example of this is Wii U NAND dumping. To even get the data from the NAND chip, you had to rig up something like this. gbatemp.net/attachments/tsop-wired-jpg.77841/ and make that interface with a PC through another board. Further, if they just 'had devices' like that, then Nintendo wouldn't have had to pay a third party to decompile and reverse engineer the code for Donkey Kong Jr, They would have used their new, in house programmers. Also if you're just going by the video here, we don't actually know it was in plain-text, and it probably still wasn't at the time. The video is of course going to show it in plain text. Wouldn't help viewers if he just pasted say... 43 6F 6E 67 72 61 74 75 6C 61 74 69 6F 6E 20 21 69 66 20 79 6F 75 20 61 6E 61 6C 79 7A 65 20 64 69 66 66 69 63 75 6C 74 20 74 68 69 73 20 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 2C 0A 77 65 20 77 6F 75 6C 64 20 74 65 61 63 68 20 79 6F 75 2E 20 2A 2A 2A 2A 2A 54 65 6C 2E 20 54 6F 6B 79 6F 2D 4A 61 70 61 6E 20 30 34 34 28 32 34 34 29 32 31 35 31 20 45 78 74 65 6E 74 69 6F 6E 20 33 30 34 20 73 79 73 74 65 6D 20 64 65 73 69 67 6E 20 69 6B 65 67 61 6D 69 20 63 6F 2E 20 6C 69 6D 2E Edit: I also forgot to mention having or writing dumping/interpreter software from scratch, or how how easily pirate cabinets could be made if it were 'much easier' at the time. All you would need is to buy one of these devices, plug in a single rom, and get a silicon fabricator to mass produce the hardware, then flash the dumped rom to it.
@@Megamus643AlphaofLifeone time nintendo tried to sue the company that made game genie devices. Because they claimed it altered copyrighted code, but in order to mess with the game you had to buy it first so they lost. To add salt to the injury sega licensed game genie devices that were made for the sega consoles while they still made for nintendo. I don't know why people like to lick a company's boot and act like they never do anything wrong, sometimes we see comments that say "this would never happen with iwata👌😞" but they have done questionable stuff since forever just like any other big corp in the world
@@TheNameIsSR thats not what im referring about what im talking about is that the the owner to the rights to the code was disputed and to nintendo they had the right to use the code for donkey kong2 from the original donkey kong
I had learned about this just 2 months ago while looking at the original Donkey Kong game on The Cutting Room Floor. Its stuff like this that makes me wonder why Nintendo can't see stuff like fan made content as innovation when they've done something like this in the past. DK Jr. is a great game, a big step up from the first entry, and to do that they essentially did what people have been doing to their games.
At the time of the incident, computer program coding wasn't recognized as copyrightable material. In 1983 when laws were created to recognize program coding as copyrightable, it had a double-edge sword effect on Nintendo. It was used against them, so on the flip side, they took it upon themselves to use it against others whenever they can to the fullest. In a way, the law was good and bad. Good as in protecting creator's rights. Bad as in a company like Nintendo finding a way to "abuse" the law to attack anyone even though it is within their rights.
@@EarthboundX Yeah that's what I figured not too long after posting this comment. It's still sad to see that this is how they are now when they used to be somewhat like the people who make fan games.
@@jenniferhamels1176 Honestly doesn't explain much. Someone could still tell that it was copied, so lawsuits would definitely be filed, so Nintendo is still a bit hypocritical. If that IS true though, then it makes the whole situation even more hypocritical of Nintendo to just take down fan games.
I had a Donkey Kong arcade machine at my home as a teenager. My parents kept the coin door unlocked and we just clicked the little drop down arm that is triggered by the weight of the quarters to play it. I had never heard of this lawsuit before. Your videos are always a delight!
I have a Tetris machine. According to the internet japan has a lot of Tetris machines but as far as I'm aware America only has the one. being that Tetris plus is one of my favorite games i really need to get Tetris plus 2 running in an emulator. Sad that game never got ported to console.
@@jeremiahbennett3004 you mis understanding when I said America just has the one I mean like Japan has Tetris plus, Tetris by Sega, etc where as we just got the one by tegen. Not that there was literally 1 Tetris machine in the US lol. Edit: Yes there is those funny version of Tetris with like huge joysticks or whatever but I'm just thinking of back in the 80s/90s
Me you and 217 other people had Donkey Kong arcade cabinets ?!?🤷🏻♀️I don't think so !? But my dad had one in the basement and we left the coin for open and clicked the trigger to add credits ! We also had an old Pepsi machine and a Galaga or Galaxy blaster flying shooter game that was also awesome but I wanted TMNT arcade cabinet back then not Donkey Kong or whatever we had.
There are certain rules that Nintendo lay out and if you follow them, Nintendo won't go after you for that video. It's a common rule that Japanese companies have, which is "if you use our content, you must provide your own commentary, or creativity in it." In other words, you cannot just upload a soundtrack onto TH-cam and call it a day. Additionally you cannot just paste in Nintendo music and put an artwork over it either, whether official or fanart. Additionally according to one of the most biggest websites that host Nintendo fangames, only 15% of them get taken down by Nintendo themselves. Main reasoning being "it's too close to a game Nintendo already made." This also started the trend of "if Nintendo takes it down, they're making that game officially."
It’s funny that Universal tried to sue Nintendo for using the Kong name. They found that that was a stupid claim because there were so many small businesses that used the King Kong name like King Kong Car Wash when they really should’ve sued them for making such a rip-off of “big gorilla steals lady and carries her up a tower.” It’s just a little different.
Actually .. 9 years before King Kong was made. There was an ape abducted a woman and carries to to a top of a tall tree. But the planes... All Universal there
@@80s_Gamr It gets better. Years before their Donkey Kong lawsuit, Universal themselves were sued over their version of King Kong. In that lawsuit, Universal's lawyers successfully argued that they didn't break copyright law because King Kong had already entered the public domain.
Now Nintendo felt like they should sue everyone that copies or makes their own game based on Nintendo's character Nintendo learned not to copy game but took it too seriously
Probably, but just if they use their ips since inspired nintendo games have definitively existed without they suing. If they copy the code that is trouble.
@@TheFraudulentOne102 Nintendo won't shake their outdated philosophy of using garbage hardware for their game systems. They have more money than God, they can afford to use much better hardware what will make their systems look and feel strong and powerful.
They are still around but they want nothing to do with gaming, not because of Nintendo but because they want their coding skill to be use in real world situation. The Donkey Kong situation was different cause videogame was still a new thing back then. Nowadays there's no point in them coding for gaming cause every gaming company already had their own coders.
They absolutely don't eat supports today. Getting into the medical device industry in the 80s almost assuredly means all those guys are millionaires today.
I have seen a lot of comments regarding fan games, here is the thing, fan games do not use Nintendo's source code, they all make it from scratch. The problem is the use of the IP which is another whole new ballgame. It kinda sucks, but this is not just a Nintendo thing, it's actually a Japan thing. SEGA just tends to love their fans more
Yea ppl just don't get it. If they all were an ip holder, or if someone was trying to replicate the same TH-cam persona,they'd be the first to be trying to sue
@@paws9248 Yeah that's the case of the Sonic team, Nintendo was light on their IP back then lending it to PHILIPS in their CDi project, we all know how those games turned out. Probably out of trauma LOL
The thing is, if it is a non-profit project, there shouldn't be any kind of issues since the Fair Use Law (FUL) protects people from creating projects associated with an IP as long as you aren't profiting from that, in fact, going against the FUL is a crime in itself, a crime that Nintendo has been doing quite a lot of times and people are still defending a criminal.
@@jironamos7650 The problem is that fair use laws do have certain limitations, and one of those limitations is the form in which fair use is being implemented in. If someone draws a protected IP character from a video game, for example, and doesn't profit from the drawing, that is considered fair use, but if someone takes a protected IP video game and then makes a fan game version of it, because the original IP was being held for a video game and the new work is also a video game, that can be considered a violation of fair use because it's the same media as the original IP. This is to protect the original IP holder from potential confusion over legitimacy, consumers MAY mistakenly believe that the fan game is an official licensed game made by the IP holder, which MAY be harmful to the IP holder's reputation or cause damages to the value of the IP in general. Whether you agree with their decisions or not, that's the reason why Nintendo is able to take down any fangame they want to, regardless of whether it's for-profit or not.
I believe the reason the arcade version of donkey kong took so long to re-release was because it was an arcade game. Since it more or less had custom hardware, it was more difficult to emulate than a standard NES game. Nintendo waited for other companies like Rare to make the emulators and didn't do it themselves until the Wii virtual console. It's on switch because hamster has been pumping out arcade ports for 5 years straight and thought they could get a few buck for doing nothing.
Arent most if not all arcade boards custom to some degree? I was first introduced to emulators in 1996. Emulation of a game from 1981 in the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, present day does not seem like something that would be difficult to get right, especially on hardware released in the last 20 years.
MAME is open source and has been around since 1997 but I agree the NES version is fairly close to the arcade version and a mite easier to get going in whatever system you're porting it to.
Rare actually ported DK arcade to DK64. This is how Nintendo got around the legal issues with Ikagami. They did a great job too considering they didn't use any source code!
The sort of 'custody battle' over the rights to Donkey Kong('s source code) is funny to me- The in-canon origin story for Mario from Yoshi's Island involves him being delivered for birth when he's nearly kidnapped away by Bowser's forces. And although ultimately the legal battle was over the programming and not the characters of Donkey Kong, it's interesting to conceptualize this as a fight over the rights to Mario. Meanwhile, Nintendo's future big icon of Mario stars in Donkey Kong Jr. for one of the only times... as a VILLIAN, for one of the biggest games that Nintendo STOLE. Fascinating.
@@wisemeowster when you watch a video on mobile, it shows comments directly below the video. It sometimes doesn't even show pinned comments, so I just saw this comment
And I think that next month, I might as well support SEGA, by buying the MP3 Soundtrack for Shadow the Hedgehog on Amazon, because that's what I have a shopping account for to make it count. THIS IS WHO I AM!
Fun Fact: two years after the release of Donkey Kong, Sega released Congo Bongo, "an isometric Donkey Kong". And this game was also developed by Ikegami Tsushinki. Oh, and also... Thanks for this video, Thomas!
So they tried to get revenge on Nintendo for stealing their code by stealing Miyamoto's IDEA? Fuck, that's petty. And giving it to a big competitor of Nintendo, even… God damn. Sounds like Ikegami isn't the classiest of acts, either.
@@armyofninjas9055 Sounds like you just jealous of a successful company. Yes Sony wreck them with the PSX but Sony got their ass whoop by Nintendo with the Wii and the Wii isn't even a powerful machine. Nintendo whoop them so hard they left Japan for good.
This is why I love your channel, You uncover so much interesting stuff that I never knew happened or knew happened, You're such a good content creator, keep up the good work👍
So Nintendo never actually made their own games starting out. Honestly never questioned how a Toy company then goes to a gaming company. really goes to show just how one sided people can be when they try to keep something under the rug.
Lol, there’s a saying; “Sometimes you gotta rob to keep your riches.” Nintendo under Yamauchi’s rule was cut throat & backstabby. They pulled the same move on Sony by signing with Phillips & killing the Nintendo CD add on. Well, you know what happened since. 😉
@@foxymetroid way I heard it, any CD software sold on that platform, all the profits would go to Sony. Which was a sh!t deal in Nintendo’s eyes. I’m glossing over a lot, but when they killed it with the NES, they acted like a tyrant over the industry. A lot of developers got fed up & moved over to Sega(Genesis/Megadrive). Much as I like Nintendo, they have these antiquated business practices that to this day, baffle & infuriate me. Probably not alone in this.
@@genericsavings Ive heard the same. Nintendo was fairly ruthless in the late 80's and 90's when it came to development. But funny thing is Sega went and did the same shit when THEY got big and devs started getting that same frustration over Sega (hence why EA has all those Yellow tabs on their Genesis games and there was a bit lawsuit over that). Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, Activision, Atari, EA, Apple, John Deere.. ect.. Doesnt matter who they are. Power corrupts and when all of them got a big head, they all tightened their grip wanting more control and money. Seems inevitable for anyone really.
They've literally never sued anyone for making a fan game. I get being mad at them for issuing takedowns but don't make stuff up just to get your point across.
@@NightFlyStudio It’s something Nintendo haters love to do. Just blindly overexaggerate the narrative to make the situation even worse than it actually is.
Okay this was incredibly impressive. I had no idea that Nintendo outsourced coding of the DK arcade so long ago and never heard of that company that made the original source code. Wow! Crazy how that company decided to go on to just make medical equipment instead
Interesting because prior to this reverse engineering of code had been ruled an individual work rather than a copied version of it and usable by the person or entity that did it. This is what made the PC compatible ok to sell when IBM's original BIOS was reverse engineered. However... that was also in the U.S. too so maybe none of that mattered when litigating this.
the PC compatible proved the legality of "clean room" reverse engineering in the USA. Code itself was already copyrighted in the USA, but it's functionality is not. so you have one team disassemble the code, and write a description of what the code does that contains no code. the description is sent to another team, which, having never seen the copyrighted code, writes their own code to do the same thing. even if it happens to be identical, because they never saw the original, it's not a copy.
I love their games, but Nintendo's always been dirty AF. But at least they do seem to let their creative teams actually be creative. Unlike a lot of other game companies that pretty much tell their developers how to design their games to meet objectives laid out in a board room.
Most companies are hypocrites though. Its usually just the degree that differs. But for sure Nintendo is a massive hypocrite when it comes to their attitudes towards "stealing"
You know, maybe, in that deal they finally struck... they simply _bought_ the source code? Then they'd fully own the whole thing, and there would never be any reason for issues in the future.
Thats quite possible.. which.. to me.. seems stupid.. They already paid for that work... when they did the initial contract. IMO the ruling was just a sign of court not really knowing how to deal with computer code legally at that time. Today, for one, contracts would be far more clear and two, im fairly sure the written code would (in almost all cases) would be owned by the ones who paid to have it written, not the ones who wrote it. But that goes by to 1 (where it would be stated who before work began).
@@lyianx Not really. Consider, you are a hospital in need of software tailored to your needs for managing your stock. You commission someone to write something that suits your needs, and you pay for it. Then it seems more hospitals could use that same solution, so the person who wrote it sells it to more hospitals. That is perfectly within their right. You only paid for the final product, and they _sold_ it to you. Even though it was originally tailored to your needs, this does not give you any rights to their code.
Thomas Game Docs: *keeps saying "illegally"* Also Thomas Game Docs: *notes code wasn't copyrighted in Japan back then and that the contract was rather loose*
@@johnmoser3594 I guess but if there were copyright laws that existed then Nintendo probably would have specified to the contracted company about the rights. You can pay another company to make something for you and you can own that.
I'm seeing comments from people claiming that Nintendo is being hypocritical because of the recent issues with fan-games and OST's. Keep in mind that all this happened in the 80's, not only was the law very different in those times (Like the fact that code wasn't even copyrightable at the time) but most of the people that worked at Nintendo in those times aren't even the same as they have today. The only exceptions you'll find are big names like Shigeru Miyamoto. In addition; Like I said, this was way back in the 80's so over 30 years has passed by since then and as far as I can tell; Nintendo hasn't done anything like this since and they own everything they produce including underline code. Sure there has been lawsuits given by other companies but a lot of them are nonsense and just companies trying to get money out of Nintendo's success, looking at you Phillips. Just to clarify; I personally do wish Nintendo would let OST's and Fan-Games fly as really they pose no threat to the company and frankly what they do is not morally correct but nobody is going to claim Nintendo is legally in the wrong because technically, they are within their rights to do this.
The shit with Nintendo OST video’s getting taken might actually have not even been done by Nintendo, there is proof that they might have been taken down by an impostor POSING as Nintendo.
The copyright law was indeed vague back then. But Nintendo was most likely aware of their first crime though. You can't just "secretly" produce another 80,000 arcade machines. That was in fact part of the contract, so it was illegal. As for the recent OST stuff, yes, I do realise it's within Nintendo's right to delete soundtrack uploads and such. It's their right, and it's legal. But it certainly isn't morally right. Also as long as people like GiIvaSunner aren't monetising their videos, Nintendo isn't losing any money, since they're not providing the albums themselves. Nintendo can do what they want, but not in anyway do I sympathise with these kind of decisions they make.
I watched this video when it first came out 2 months ago but didn’t see your comment at the time. I’m seeing it now and am honestly amazed at the comment. I had no idea this was the initial idea!
So, it wasn't the property of Ikegami after the initial purchases. A settlement out of court was best for Ikegami as the idea of retroactive copyright is..well... difficult. Also, having their name inside the code could be seen as a breach of contract...
Well, without knowing what the contract stated, both statements are assumptions. We do not know if the original contract stated that the code became the property of Nintendo (I assume it didn't, or Ikegami woul dhave had no argument at all). I also very much doubt the contract stated "you may not put your name inside the code".
i guess back in the 1980s, when nintendo wanted more "donkey arcade" to produce their 1st partnership company couldn't produce fast enough - so nintendo probably got desperate and wanted to produce faster.
You stole something from Nintendo; Nintendo like "So you have chosen death" Nintendo steals something; Nintendo like "what're you talking about, i didn't do shit!" Ironic when the tables are different.
For anyone who want to see the video's marked with in the video about stuff to go faster, anyways It's my pleasure to do so. TIMESTAMP Intro: 0:00 Pt1 | The Shadow Developers: 0:28 Pt2 | The Sequel: 7:44 Pt3 | The Lawsuit: 10:19 Outro: 13:35
Except they weren't sued for $14 million, that's the value today which isn't exactly relevant. Secondly, the actual value has never been disclosed publicly so where did you pull this figure out from? They supposedly sought that much but they settled out of court so the fee was likely much lower.
Ooh, I really didn't know about this! Wow, to think Nintendo was scummy from the beginning; a shame more karma like this hasn't come up in recent years 😒
I wouldn’t be surprised if the deal that went down behind closed doors involved Nintendo pretty much not needing permission to use the arcade version anymore but chose not to use that version mostly because they 100% owned the remade version. So when Rareware asked to put it in, to act faithful to the arcade version, Nintendo had no issue. (but probably still prefer their in house version if they chose themselves considering it took until the Switch to see it again)
I see major glaring issues with what people are interpreting that situation as and what ACTUALLY happened. The case ruling stated that video game code wasn’t eligible for copyright, and therefore, the use of another’s code was okay. Now if this act was done TODAY, there would be major legal consequences. But that’s the thing, it was 40 years ago, the law was different. The case as mentioned in the video was settled and Nintendo effectively successfully defended themselves in court. As for those who are complaining “iF ninTenDO StOle BaCk thEn, WhY caNt I STeaL NOw” Again, the law has since changed. It’s not the 1980’s anymore, it’s 2022. Back then copyright law was still being developed and was more than lenient. Now, it is a crucial part of society and violations have major consequences. One issue I have with the video, is that it actively seeks to make Nintendo look like villains when at the time, there was no issue with what they did. At the time, they believed what they did was legal. And again at the time, it technically was. People need to understand, the legal system isn’t something that is black and white. For example, verbal contracts, like they are today, are flimsy at best, and outright stupid at worst. And yet Ikegami sighed a documented contract giving the ownership of the game to Nintendo, as expressed in this video multiple times.
@@polocatfan what do you mean that’s not how it works. Laws change as times change. Laws are developed over time. And when a law against a specific act doesn’t yet account for something or doesn’t exist yet. acts that would violate it, don’t. And no, you can’t just say “now we can persecute them again since the law changed” because that’s double jeopardy and yes, is illegal. For a very extreme example, in the 1700’s, slavery in US was legal. Now it is obviously illegal. Law’s change because of loopholes and missing parts, when this case happened, Japanese Copyright law wasn’t developed, and therefore copyright as a concept wasn’t really enforced. You probably just said that comment thinking I didn’t know anything, and that a simple comment would make me say “oh no I’m so incorrect.” Laws exist to protect the freedoms of others… at least in some places. They also prevent wrongs from being committed on others. So what part did I actually get wrong. You want to refute a point, bring evidence to back up your claim. Edit: was fixing a typo
@@nocwilson0578 don’t worry I checked before I wrote that, Double Jeopardy does actually exist in Japan. It’s in article 39 of the constitution of Japan 1947. It’s cool, I understand that line of concern. :) Edit: sorry I meant it’s illegal to commit double jeopardy.
12:15 "Nintendo and Ikegami struck a deal out of court. The details of that deal were never made public." *Oh, for crying out loud, really? I wanna know!*
Seems like Ikegami was the Tose of their time - a shadow developer who made games for much bigger names while quietly letting the larger company take the credit (as long as they got paid).
Well that's funny. They copyright strike a lot of people who happen to share their content (even if they credit Nintendo for it) but they stole a whole programming code from a different developer to claim it to be theirs and also took very obvious music inspiration from irl bands and used it for certain Mario music.. Talk about irony and hypocritical things
LOL. Hollywood does that shit ALL the time! Scripts and ideas are CONSTANTLY stolen. Its very common for studios to hear ideas pitched at them, they reject them, then make their own script from that idea so they dont have to buy the one pitched to them.
I love how kids are watching this video and coming to the conclusion of "this means that I should be able to make content with other peoples IP without repercussions".
@@rohanrodrigues7115 i'm pretty sure your avatar is technically a copyright violation 😏. and yes, i do think people _should_ be able to create derivative works, all creativity involves using previously existing concepts. like Mario being originally being a legally-distinct Popeye clone before becoming more of it's own thing. i guess i can't advise people to make illegal artworks because i don't want to get them in trouble. but i also don't advise people to ever pay for access to copyrighted works. i've been avoiding to do that for about 15 years, and i'm not missing much.
@@sofia.eris.bauhaus my avatar is "technically" not a copyright violation 😉. As for your second para, yes, people can do that obviously, look at undertale. And judging from the third para, you don't pay for official works?
@@rohanrodrigues7115 i am very much for supporting artists, but outside of the copyright system. commissions, crowdfunding, and just donations are all ways of financing that don't rely on artificial monopolies and restricting access. i have a little playlist called "against monopoly" that gets go through various aspects, of you're interested. most artists don't get much or anything out of copyright. so i'd hope we can make this a win-win arrangement. to be fair, i'm pretty short on money these days, so i'm not doing many donations. but i realize supporting artists in in my long-term interests, so i'll do it more if i can.
The Donkey Kong arcade game was displayed in portrait, essentially with a TV screen turned sideways in the cabinet, and the NES version was in landscape, which may have been a factor in deciding which version to port to newer devices.
There was one more ocassion where Nintendo rereleased the original Donkey Kong. Around 2004 or so, there was an Arcade cabinet that had Mario Bros., Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong JR.
I love to see how far you've come since I started watching you when you were just shy of 10.000 Subs and that you retained the same great vibes ^^ Wish you all the luck and hopefully soon half a million subs
Sounds more like Miyamoto was essentially the Program Director all along, but it is nice to know who also worked on the program to make it all happen. It is unfortunate that Nintendo may have had an oversight in buying the rights to the program code at that time, but it also appears that the code wasn't technically considered protected by copyright at the time it was done. I think it's a bit much to call it stolen or theft, as that wasn't the way it would have been understood in Japan in 1981. That said, it is good to see that they eventually did the right thing by purchasing the code after being penalized in court. This just shows that Nintendo was on the cutting edge of video gaming and literally had to have laws written to define the future of the industry.
I dont agree that it WAS ikegami's code. Hell, NOBODY knew who's code it was until a law was made up DURING THE LAWSUIT and then it was decided. Thats pretty slimy if the courts if you ask me.
Seeing as how the original Donkey Kong alone (not counting sequels, Country, Konga, or anything but literal ports of the first game) has made them well over 4 billion dollars over the years, I think they could part with $14 million.
6:41 Nintendo: It's illegal to make personal backup copies of our games (even though it's not, distributing it is) Also Nintendo: Illegally dumps their own arcade game to circumvent contractual obligations. Hypocrisy, thy name is Nintendo.
Remember: this is the same company who would cease and decist you for making fan games and mods, as well as issue DMCAs for uploading their music as they refuse to give you a place to listen to it.
Your channel is my favorite of all time. You tell great, unique stories and you do so consistently. I always look forward to your new uploads. Keep it up!
Nintendo copied Disney. Just look at Zelda. Link is Peter Pan and has a fairy Tinkerbell. Zelda falls asleep like Sleeping Beauty. Link pulls out the Master Sword like Sword in the Stone. There's so much more and no one ever called Nintendo out on it.
No they didnt and if they did Disney sucks and deserves to get copied off also Disney copied Kimba The White Lion(1965) to make Lion King and stole lots of inspiration from other Japanese anime for their films
Hello Thomas! I’m a fan, I’ve been watching your content since 2020. I have a pretty big gaming mystery you could research, since I have been looking into it and have barely any leads. On the Game Boy add on, the Game Boy Camera, there are some weird faces you can access. They appear to be Nintendo employees with strange doodles all over their face. There are 3 varieties in the International releases but in Japan, there are 2 more. As previously mentioned, I have been researching into this and have found one potential source. A guy on Reddit (great source, I know) stated that one of them had a similar facial structure to a composer who worked on the game, but that is all. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!
Compare that to now that Nintendo would hunt you down in person to make sure you won't ever enjoy life again. Pretty sick but for us players a cool story nonetheless.
@@platinumdiamond7 oh wait youre talking about the dude that made a switch malware and sold it as a hacking device yeah that due bricked peoples consoles
As a side note, I didn't know that DK Jr. had ideas Miyamoto couldn't add to the original DK. It's pretty interesting to consider that you can sum up a lot of his career that way: Miyamoto wants to add something to Game A, but can't, then Game A becomes such a hit that it's difficult to imagine adding those features to an already iconic game, so a sequel is greenlit, and he ultimately gets to add those now-refined features to Game B.
Perhaps Nintendo decided to port the NES version so often due to better knowing how the NES works than the Arcade-Original hardware, making it easier to translate the NES version
I have no idea on what topic that could be covered, but I have a feeling a collaboration with the Gaming Historian would make for the most comprehensive documentary on video game topic to ever be covered. His channel is the only other one that does work comparable to this. Very good stuff Thomas Game Docs! Now excuse me while I subscribe and binge all of your videos.
There is another Donkey Kong version released. It was the NES version and It was launched on Wii and 3DS virtual consoles, but unlike the old NES version, this one added a level from the arcade version that didn't make it to the original NES port due to the NES's hardware limitations. The game on the virtual console is a NES rom, but adding that missing level which was the factory, making it 100% faithful to the Arcade version.
@@Nighttale233 well, maybe this helps you make an informed estimate: i think copyright is harmful, and Nintendo does big contributions to that harm. their persecution of rom sites and derivative works, their pushing of DRM and other "copy protection" garbage is making the world worse. it's an assault on free communication and free competition. other game companies do similar shit of course, and some are definitely worse. but that is not an excuse for shitty behavior. they should be criticized, and i don't plan to buy anything from them. but i won't condemn them for being the victim of copyright, especially not retroactive copyright enforcement. copyright is a minefield as it is, retroactive copyright is absolutely terrifying for any creative person.
thanks for watching!!! got some cool new video ideas I'm working on so subscribe if you wanna see those!!! but also you don't have to
and if you're already subscribed thanks babe :)))
I’m already subscribed!
I can't wait for the new ideas
Cool
This guy is good at videos and secrets
I love your zero pressure call to subscribe.
2:05 For the record, finding the contact information inside the arcade's ROM was a big deal back then, you couldn't just download it, there was no Internet yet, you'd have had to dump the actual chips from the actual hardware, and even that would've been inaccessible to most people since, again, there was no Internet, so there were no devices you could use to extract data from the ICs. If someone _did_ manage to find that data back then, they'd be _very_ skilled, hence the job offer.
It was not that hard to read the data from the chips (and yes, they had devices to read that data, it was much simpler than today….and they don’t need the internet for such things). Also the offer was plain text, so you don’t even needed any programming experience.
@@MabuseXX Yeah, but how were people supposed to do that in an arcade without getting caught?
@@MabuseXX "it wad much simpler than today"
I highly doubt that.
Today i can just download a rom and a hex editor and voila. If not, there are specific tools for that today that you can get by the click of a button.
@@MabuseXX @Richter WLK is correct. There weren't commercial devices for accessing arcade hardware (if there were, Nintendo probably wouldn't have needed to outsource conversion kits in the first place) and for anyone who follow hardware hacking, it often requires fabrication of equipment, a lot of fine soldering skills and tracing of circuits to find the desired ones.
For something like this to happen, someone would need to essentially cannibalize one of these arcade cabinet's roms, possibly the board too, and create a from scratch interface board that could be connected to a PC (which at the time would likely have been a mess of wires to a PCI card, PCI-e in the grand scheme of things is relatively new in computers, and such a USB device isn't likely either at the time, so oldschool pci or perhaps serial?)
An example of this is Wii U NAND dumping. To even get the data from the NAND chip, you had to rig up something like this. gbatemp.net/attachments/tsop-wired-jpg.77841/ and make that interface with a PC through another board. Further, if they just 'had devices' like that, then Nintendo wouldn't have had to pay a third party to decompile and reverse engineer the code for Donkey Kong Jr, They would have used their new, in house programmers.
Also if you're just going by the video here, we don't actually know it was in plain-text, and it probably still wasn't at the time. The video is of course going to show it in plain text. Wouldn't help viewers if he just pasted say... 43 6F 6E 67 72 61 74 75 6C 61 74 69 6F 6E 20 21 69 66 20 79 6F 75 20 61 6E 61 6C 79 7A 65 20 64 69 66 66 69 63 75 6C 74 20 74 68 69 73 20 70 72 6F 67 72 61 6D 2C 0A 77 65 20 77 6F 75 6C 64 20 74 65 61 63 68 20 79 6F 75 2E 20 2A 2A 2A 2A 2A 54 65 6C 2E 20 54 6F 6B 79 6F 2D 4A 61 70 61 6E 20 30 34 34 28 32 34 34 29 32 31 35 31 20 45 78 74 65 6E 74 69 6F 6E 20 33 30 34 20 73 79 73 74 65 6D 20 64 65 73 69 67 6E 20 69 6B 65 67 61 6D 69 20 63 6F 2E 20 6C 69 6D 2E
Edit: I also forgot to mention having or writing dumping/interpreter software from scratch, or how how easily pirate cabinets could be made if it were 'much easier' at the time. All you would need is to buy one of these devices, plug in a single rom, and get a silicon fabricator to mass produce the hardware, then flash the dumped rom to it.
So pirates and hackers would get job offers back then ?
Wow, Nintendo should sue themselves for ROM piracy. 😂
Hey nintendo Did not do that, Nintendo was never liked that before 😡
@@Megamus643AlphaofLife lmao
@@Megamus643AlphaofLife Do your research.
@@Megamus643AlphaofLifeone time nintendo tried to sue the company that made game genie devices.
Because they claimed it altered copyrighted code, but in order to mess with the game you had to buy it first so they lost.
To add salt to the injury sega licensed game genie devices that were made for the sega consoles while they still made for nintendo.
I don't know why people like to lick a company's boot and act like they never do anything wrong, sometimes we see comments that say "this would never happen with iwata👌😞" but they have done questionable stuff since forever just like any other big corp in the world
@@Megamus643AlphaofLife It's practically confirmed that they did; watch this: th-cam.com/video/zR1uEwjx7VI/w-d-xo.html
Nintendo did the exact thing that they’re stopping the fans from doing. Wow…
Ironic
The issue here is that the rights of the code was disputed and murky this han nothing to do with what you are mentioning
@@simnm8057 exactly, most fans actually have a good reason to pirate the older games, they're not available. Nintendo just wanted to increase profits
@@TheNameIsSR thats not what im referring about what im talking about is that the the owner to the rights to the code was disputed and to nintendo they had the right to use the code for donkey kong2 from the original donkey kong
"You were the chosen one! It was said you’d destroy the plagiarists, not join them!"
I had learned about this just 2 months ago while looking at the original Donkey Kong game on The Cutting Room Floor. Its stuff like this that makes me wonder why Nintendo can't see stuff like fan made content as innovation when they've done something like this in the past. DK Jr. is a great game, a big step up from the first entry, and to do that they essentially did what people have been doing to their games.
I guess they're just hypocritical as hell.
At the time of the incident, computer program coding wasn't recognized as copyrightable material. In 1983 when laws were created to recognize program coding as copyrightable, it had a double-edge sword effect on Nintendo. It was used against them, so on the flip side, they took it upon themselves to use it against others whenever they can to the fullest.
In a way, the law was good and bad. Good as in protecting creator's rights. Bad as in a company like Nintendo finding a way to "abuse" the law to attack anyone even though it is within their rights.
I mean it was about 40 years ago, that's a completely different group of people who ran Nintendo back then.
@@EarthboundX Yeah that's what I figured not too long after posting this comment. It's still sad to see that this is how they are now when they used to be somewhat like the people who make fan games.
@@jenniferhamels1176 Honestly doesn't explain much. Someone could still tell that it was copied, so lawsuits would definitely be filed, so Nintendo is still a bit hypocritical. If that IS true though, then it makes the whole situation even more hypocritical of Nintendo to just take down fan games.
I had a Donkey Kong arcade machine at my home as a teenager. My parents kept the coin door unlocked and we just clicked the little drop down arm that is triggered by the weight of the quarters to play it. I had never heard of this lawsuit before. Your videos are always a delight!
I have a Tetris machine. According to the internet japan has a lot of Tetris machines but as far as I'm aware America only has the one. being that Tetris plus is one of my favorite games i really need to get Tetris plus 2 running in an emulator. Sad that game never got ported to console.
@@bland9876 I've played on a tetris machine before In America, in Las Vegas at the pinball hall of fame there's a tetris arcade machine
@@jeremiahbennett3004 you mis understanding when I said America just has the one I mean like Japan has Tetris plus, Tetris by Sega, etc where as we just got the one by tegen. Not that there was literally 1 Tetris machine in the US lol.
Edit: Yes there is those funny version of Tetris with like huge joysticks or whatever but I'm just thinking of back in the 80s/90s
@@bland9876 ah ok, the wording was just weird
Me you and 217 other people had Donkey Kong arcade cabinets ?!?🤷🏻♀️I don't think so !?
But my dad had one in the basement and we left the coin for open and clicked the trigger to add credits !
We also had an old Pepsi machine and a Galaga or Galaxy blaster flying shooter game that was also awesome but I wanted TMNT arcade cabinet back then not Donkey Kong or whatever we had.
Also Nintendo: You record Zelda songs, we copyright strike you. You make a Mario fan game from scratch with no profit, we sue you.
Ironic because Nintendo's music is IN THIS VIDEO. Did he get sued?
There are certain rules that Nintendo lay out and if you follow them, Nintendo won't go after you for that video. It's a common rule that Japanese companies have, which is "if you use our content, you must provide your own commentary, or creativity in it." In other words, you cannot just upload a soundtrack onto TH-cam and call it a day. Additionally you cannot just paste in Nintendo music and put an artwork over it either, whether official or fanart.
Additionally according to one of the most biggest websites that host Nintendo fangames, only 15% of them get taken down by Nintendo themselves. Main reasoning being "it's too close to a game Nintendo already made." This also started the trend of "if Nintendo takes it down, they're making that game officially."
eugene
@@raymaikeru Is that why Nintendo seems to be fine with remixes of their soundtracks?
@@magic2546 Mostly.
It’s funny that Universal tried to sue Nintendo for using the Kong name. They found that that was a stupid claim because there were so many small businesses that used the King Kong name like King Kong Car Wash when they really should’ve sued them for making such a rip-off of “big gorilla steals lady and carries her up a tower.” It’s just a little different.
Actually .. 9 years before King Kong was made. There was an ape abducted a woman and carries to to a top of a tall tree. But the planes... All Universal there
That part isn't that bad dude chill
That's not why Universal lost. Through investigation it was found that Universal didn't actually own the rights to King Kong as they claimed they did.
@@okamijubei What about the orignal 1930';s one
@@80s_Gamr It gets better. Years before their Donkey Kong lawsuit, Universal themselves were sued over their version of King Kong. In that lawsuit, Universal's lawyers successfully argued that they didn't break copyright law because King Kong had already entered the public domain.
Now Nintendo felt like they should sue everyone that copies or makes their own game based on Nintendo's character
Nintendo learned not to copy game but took it too seriously
Probably, but just if they use their ips since inspired nintendo games have definitively existed without they suing. If they copy the code that is trouble.
Nintendo got sued once for stealing, and they've wanted everyone else to feel that pain ever since
Damn i don't know if i should feel sorry for nintendo or not
@@randoburr5201 you really shouldn't feel bad for them they can't even buy better hardware for the switch with their multimillion money
@@TheFraudulentOne102 Nintendo won't shake their outdated philosophy of using garbage hardware for their game systems.
They have more money than God, they can afford to use much better hardware what will make their systems look and feel strong and powerful.
@@marccaselle8108 I mean it sold 100m units and counting
@@IAm-zo1bo children
So THATS why nintendo never released the arcade version of Donkey Kong! They would have to split the profits.
You can play it on switch
It was on N64 too in DK64.
@my Thomas Channel isn't that the NES version and not the arcade one
@@FilmBucket It's that arcade one but Nintendo did modify the code their own way so it doesn't involve Ikegami Tsushinki anymore.
@@VOAN how do you know
If those 6 Ikegami employees that worked on Donkey Kong are still around, I think we should support them.
They are still around but they want nothing to do with gaming, not because of Nintendo but because they want their coding skill to be use in real world situation. The Donkey Kong situation was different cause videogame was still a new thing back then. Nowadays there's no point in them coding for gaming cause every gaming company already had their own coders.
Yes
They absolutely don't eat supports today. Getting into the medical device industry in the 80s almost assuredly means all those guys are millionaires today.
I have seen a lot of comments regarding fan games, here is the thing, fan games do not use Nintendo's source code, they all make it from scratch. The problem is the use of the IP which is another whole new ballgame. It kinda sucks, but this is not just a Nintendo thing, it's actually a Japan thing. SEGA just tends to love their fans more
Yea ppl just don't get it. If they all were an ip holder, or if someone was trying to replicate the same TH-cam persona,they'd be the first to be trying to sue
if i had a franchise that people loved so much they made their own whole entire fangames of it i wouldbe honored
@@paws9248 Yeah that's the case of the Sonic team, Nintendo was light on their IP back then lending it to PHILIPS in their CDi project, we all know how those games turned out. Probably out of trauma LOL
The thing is, if it is a non-profit project, there shouldn't be any kind of issues since the Fair Use Law (FUL) protects people from creating projects associated with an IP as long as you aren't profiting from that, in fact, going against the FUL is a crime in itself, a crime that Nintendo has been doing quite a lot of times and people are still defending a criminal.
@@jironamos7650 The problem is that fair use laws do have certain limitations, and one of those limitations is the form in which fair use is being implemented in. If someone draws a protected IP character from a video game, for example, and doesn't profit from the drawing, that is considered fair use, but if someone takes a protected IP video game and then makes a fan game version of it, because the original IP was being held for a video game and the new work is also a video game, that can be considered a violation of fair use because it's the same media as the original IP. This is to protect the original IP holder from potential confusion over legitimacy, consumers MAY mistakenly believe that the fan game is an official licensed game made by the IP holder, which MAY be harmful to the IP holder's reputation or cause damages to the value of the IP in general. Whether you agree with their decisions or not, that's the reason why Nintendo is able to take down any fangame they want to, regardless of whether it's for-profit or not.
I'll always remember these sorts of stories whenever I hear the big companies cry "don't copy that floppy!"
Copy dat, what what why?
Like what EA did to SEGA?
copycat 🐱
haha that song is the best thing ever
Yet Nintendo goes to cry when people steal their games LMAO
or their music lmfao
@@MrChainChomp Right? LMAO
Why do you say lmao in all caps
@@VeryTastySoup87 To emphasize the LMAO
R4 for life
I believe the reason the arcade version of donkey kong took so long to re-release was because it was an arcade game. Since it more or less had custom hardware, it was more difficult to emulate than a standard NES game. Nintendo waited for other companies like Rare to make the emulators and didn't do it themselves until the Wii virtual console. It's on switch because hamster has been pumping out arcade ports for 5 years straight and thought they could get a few buck for doing nothing.
well, based on the state of the switch online emulators... they should had outsource it...
Arent most if not all arcade boards custom to some degree? I was first introduced to emulators in 1996. Emulation of a game from 1981 in the 90s, 2000s, 2010s, present day does not seem like something that would be difficult to get right, especially on hardware released in the last 20 years.
MAME is open source and has been around since 1997 but I agree the NES version is fairly close to the arcade version and a mite easier to get going in whatever system you're porting it to.
Rare actually ported DK arcade to DK64. This is how Nintendo got around the legal issues with Ikagami. They did a great job too considering they didn't use any source code!
The sort of 'custody battle' over the rights to Donkey Kong('s source code) is funny to me- The in-canon origin story for Mario from Yoshi's Island involves him being delivered for birth when he's nearly kidnapped away by Bowser's forces. And although ultimately the legal battle was over the programming and not the characters of Donkey Kong, it's interesting to conceptualize this as a fight over the rights to Mario.
Meanwhile, Nintendo's future big icon of Mario stars in Donkey Kong Jr. for one of the only times... as a VILLIAN, for one of the biggest games that Nintendo STOLE. Fascinating.
But didn’t Nintendo create the idea of donkey Kong first.
Well of course the lawsuit is over the code. Nintendo owned everything BUT the code.
@@gamercentral2417 stated in the video by the end.
I was expecting it to be a more obscure game, I wasn't expecting it to be DK Jr. Great video! :)
That spoiled the video 😭😭😭
Spoilers bruh
Why are y'all looking at the comments while looking at the video? Do you not expect people to say something about the video???
@@wisemeowster on mobile it shows a preview of a comment it just so happens this specific comment that it previews
@@wisemeowster when you watch a video on mobile, it shows comments directly below the video. It sometimes doesn't even show pinned comments, so I just saw this comment
After whatever happened to Gilvasunner channel, Nintendo once again made an oopsie just like what it did to fan games.
And I think that next month, I might as well support SEGA, by buying the MP3 Soundtrack for Shadow the Hedgehog on Amazon, because that's what I have a shopping account for to make it count. THIS IS WHO I AM!
Fun Fact: two years after the release of Donkey Kong, Sega released Congo Bongo, "an isometric Donkey Kong". And this game was also developed by Ikegami Tsushinki.
Oh, and also... Thanks for this video, Thomas!
So they tried to get revenge on Nintendo for stealing their code by stealing Miyamoto's IDEA? Fuck, that's petty. And giving it to a big competitor of Nintendo, even… God damn. Sounds like Ikegami isn't the classiest of acts, either.
@@CarbonRollerCaco Nah. Nintendo is trash. They inspire hate in their partners. They MADE sony wreck them with PSX lol.
@@armyofninjas9055 Sounds like you just jealous of a successful company. Yes Sony wreck them with the PSX but Sony got their ass whoop by Nintendo with the Wii and the Wii isn't even a powerful machine. Nintendo whoop them so hard they left Japan for good.
@@VOAN Remote controller
@@VOAN How dense can you be to white knight nintendo and talk about "muh nintendo successes" when the convo is about how scummy they are.
This is why I love your channel,
You uncover so much interesting stuff that I never knew happened or knew happened, You're such a good content creator, keep up the good work👍
thank so much!!!
@@ThomasGameDocs Anytime man
@@ThomasGameDocs this story is fake because Nintendo never steals
@@dr.eggman8378 Mario 2 isn't a mario game
@@justarandomhandlewithnomeaning I never said anything about Mario 2 being a real game plus the game is real so I don’t know what your talking about
TGD: plays Danganronpa music
me: hmm
TGD: mentions a developer named Yasuhiro
me: *HMM*
Thomas Game Docs is always at least 30% right!
So Nintendo never actually made their own games starting out. Honestly never questioned how a Toy company then goes to a gaming company. really goes to show just how one sided people can be when they try to keep something under the rug.
Lol, there’s a saying;
“Sometimes you gotta rob to keep your riches.”
Nintendo under Yamauchi’s rule was cut throat & backstabby.
They pulled the same move on Sony by signing with Phillips & killing the Nintendo CD add on.
Well, you know what happened since.
😉
To be fair, they didn't plan on backstabbing Sony until someone reread the contract and realized Sony was going to backstab them.
@@foxymetroid way I heard it, any CD software sold on that platform, all the profits would go to Sony.
Which was a sh!t deal in Nintendo’s eyes.
I’m glossing over a lot, but when they killed it with the NES, they acted like a tyrant over the industry.
A lot of developers got fed up & moved over to Sega(Genesis/Megadrive).
Much as I like Nintendo, they have these antiquated business practices that to this day, baffle & infuriate me.
Probably not alone in this.
Yamauchi was like lot of business people at the time. Cutthroat and sneaky. If you think Yamauchi was bad, Jack Tramiel was worse.
@@genericsavings Ive heard the same. Nintendo was fairly ruthless in the late 80's and 90's when it came to development. But funny thing is Sega went and did the same shit when THEY got big and devs started getting that same frustration over Sega (hence why EA has all those Yellow tabs on their Genesis games and there was a bit lawsuit over that).
Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, Activision, Atari, EA, Apple, John Deere.. ect.. Doesnt matter who they are. Power corrupts and when all of them got a big head, they all tightened their grip wanting more control and money. Seems inevitable for anyone really.
They sue people for making fanmade games but it's ok for them to steal someone else game
They've literally never sued anyone for making a fan game. I get being mad at them for issuing takedowns but don't make stuff up just to get your point across.
@@NightFlyStudio It’s something Nintendo haters love to do. Just blindly overexaggerate the narrative to make the situation even worse than it actually is.
@@NightFlyStudio that's bull, you can't even DRAW a picture of Mario without getting the Nintendo regime down your back
@@FallingStar1080 What YOU’RE saying is bull.
They stole the code, the game is Shigeru's.
Okay this was incredibly impressive. I had no idea that Nintendo outsourced coding of the DK arcade so long ago and never heard of that company that made the original source code. Wow! Crazy how that company decided to go on to just make medical equipment instead
Probably waay more money in medical than in gaming machines at that time (probably even still so now)
@@lyianx *This is off-topic, but your profile picture I kinda recognize. Isn't his name Bill or something?*
Interesting because prior to this reverse engineering of code had been ruled an individual work rather than a copied version of it and usable by the person or entity that did it. This is what made the PC compatible ok to sell when IBM's original BIOS was reverse engineered. However... that was also in the U.S. too so maybe none of that mattered when litigating this.
the PC compatible proved the legality of "clean room" reverse engineering in the USA. Code itself was already copyrighted in the USA, but it's functionality is not. so you have one team disassemble the code, and write a description of what the code does that contains no code. the description is sent to another team, which, having never seen the copyrighted code, writes their own code to do the same thing. even if it happens to be identical, because they never saw the original, it's not a copy.
Nintendo's Hipocracy shows no bounds
Nintendo: Don't pirate our games or we'll sue you
Also Nintendo:
Nintendo: Do what I say, not what I do. Always remember that.
I love their games, but Nintendo's always been dirty AF. But at least they do seem to let their creative teams actually be creative. Unlike a lot of other game companies that pretty much tell their developers how to design their games to meet objectives laid out in a board room.
Most companies are hypocrites though. Its usually just the degree that differs. But for sure Nintendo is a massive hypocrite when it comes to their attitudes towards "stealing"
hipocracy
@@VOANbruh that's just having a mom
You know, maybe, in that deal they finally struck... they simply _bought_ the source code? Then they'd fully own the whole thing, and there would never be any reason for issues in the future.
Probably. I'm sure it still involved a very large sum of money exchanging hands tho
Thats quite possible.. which.. to me.. seems stupid.. They already paid for that work... when they did the initial contract. IMO the ruling was just a sign of court not really knowing how to deal with computer code legally at that time. Today, for one, contracts would be far more clear and two, im fairly sure the written code would (in almost all cases) would be owned by the ones who paid to have it written, not the ones who wrote it. But that goes by to 1 (where it would be stated who before work began).
@@lyianx Not really. Consider, you are a hospital in need of software tailored to your needs for managing your stock. You commission someone to write something that suits your needs, and you pay for it. Then it seems more hospitals could use that same solution, so the person who wrote it sells it to more hospitals. That is perfectly within their right. You only paid for the final product, and they _sold_ it to you. Even though it was originally tailored to your needs, this does not give you any rights to their code.
Thomas Game Docs: *keeps saying "illegally"*
Also Thomas Game Docs: *notes code wasn't copyrighted in Japan back then and that the contract was rather loose*
yeah it's pretty odd. i guess when people see copyright as justified, they also consider unauthorized copying "stealing", even if there isn't a law.
For stuff like this i appreciate when people make a distinction between illegal and unlawful
Kind of like it wasn't a crime when you did it, but it is now.
@@johnmoser3594 I guess but if there were copyright laws that existed then Nintendo probably would have specified to the contracted company about the rights. You can pay another company to make something for you and you can own that.
this is most likely why there are such harsh laws in japan about reverse engineering code now. to try and prevent incidents like this.
People seem shocked by this but it was also 40 years ago. That's a long ass time ago.
I'm seeing comments from people claiming that Nintendo is being hypocritical because of the recent issues with fan-games and OST's. Keep in mind that all this happened in the 80's, not only was the law very different in those times (Like the fact that code wasn't even copyrightable at the time) but most of the people that worked at Nintendo in those times aren't even the same as they have today. The only exceptions you'll find are big names like Shigeru Miyamoto.
In addition; Like I said, this was way back in the 80's so over 30 years has passed by since then and as far as I can tell; Nintendo hasn't done anything like this since and they own everything they produce including underline code. Sure there has been lawsuits given by other companies but a lot of them are nonsense and just companies trying to get money out of Nintendo's success, looking at you Phillips.
Just to clarify; I personally do wish Nintendo would let OST's and Fan-Games fly as really they pose no threat to the company and frankly what they do is not morally correct but nobody is going to claim Nintendo is legally in the wrong because technically, they are within their rights to do this.
The shit with Nintendo OST video’s getting taken might actually have not even been done by Nintendo, there is proof that they might have been taken down by an impostor POSING as Nintendo.
The copyright law was indeed vague back then. But Nintendo was most likely aware of their first crime though. You can't just "secretly" produce another 80,000 arcade machines. That was in fact part of the contract, so it was illegal.
As for the recent OST stuff, yes, I do realise it's within Nintendo's right to delete soundtrack uploads and such. It's their right, and it's legal. But it certainly isn't morally right. Also as long as people like GiIvaSunner aren't monetising their videos, Nintendo isn't losing any money, since they're not providing the albums themselves. Nintendo can do what they want, but not in anyway do I sympathise with these kind of decisions they make.
@@Rediscool9 That's been proven false. TH-cam themselves came forward and confirmed it really was from Nintendo.
@@TheGamersState Can you give me a link?
Japanese with there copyright issue 😆
Well at least Western way better thanks to quake we never having half life and many other future FPS.
Fun Fact: Before Donkey Kong was released, Nintendo was gonna make it a game with the Popeye characters.
Yes, which is why it felt so similar. Mario is Popeye, DK is Bruno, and Pauline was Olive Oil.
I watched this video when it first came out 2 months ago but didn’t see your comment at the time. I’m seeing it now and am honestly amazed at the comment. I had no idea this was the initial idea!
ive heard
So, it wasn't the property of Ikegami after the initial purchases. A settlement out of court was best for Ikegami as the idea of retroactive copyright is..well... difficult. Also, having their name inside the code could be seen as a breach of contract...
Well, without knowing what the contract stated, both statements are assumptions. We do not know if the original contract stated that the code became the property of Nintendo (I assume it didn't, or Ikegami woul dhave had no argument at all). I also very much doubt the contract stated "you may not put your name inside the code".
i guess back in the 1980s, when nintendo wanted more "donkey arcade" to produce their 1st partnership company couldn't produce fast enough - so nintendo probably got desperate and wanted to produce faster.
You stole something from Nintendo; Nintendo like "So you have chosen death"
Nintendo steals something; Nintendo like "what're you talking about, i didn't do shit!"
Ironic when the tables are different.
For anyone who want to see the video's marked with in the video about stuff to go faster, anyways It's my pleasure to do so.
TIMESTAMP
Intro: 0:00
Pt1 | The Shadow Developers: 0:28
Pt2 | The Sequel: 7:44
Pt3 | The Lawsuit: 10:19
Outro: 13:35
Except they weren't sued for $14 million, that's the value today which isn't exactly relevant. Secondly, the actual value has never been disclosed publicly so where did you pull this figure out from? They supposedly sought that much but they settled out of court so the fee was likely much lower.
Ooh, I really didn't know about this! Wow, to think Nintendo was scummy from the beginning; a shame more karma like this hasn't come up in recent years 😒
Sad thing is that this is accurate
name a company of that size that isn't scummy. unfortunately, this is a completely normal state of affairs in the corporate world.
@@romulus_ Keep drinking that kool-aid. Perhaps Nintendo might love you back one day.
@@Phreno_Xeno so quick to try to diss me that you didn't realize i'm saying they're all the same. pathetic.
@@Phreno_Xeno Either you're way too fast at reading, or the education system has failed you.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the deal that went down behind closed doors involved Nintendo pretty much not needing permission to use the arcade version anymore but chose not to use that version mostly because they 100% owned the remade version.
So when Rareware asked to put it in, to act faithful to the arcade version, Nintendo had no issue. (but probably still prefer their in house version if they chose themselves considering it took until the Switch to see it again)
RARE did an excellent job porting the arcade DK to DK64. And without any source code too.
I always ask myself , "what were the coders of this game" and now i have the answer. Thanks for the video, very educative
I see major glaring issues with what people are interpreting that situation as and what ACTUALLY happened.
The case ruling stated that video game code wasn’t eligible for copyright, and therefore, the use of another’s code was okay. Now if this act was done TODAY, there would be major legal consequences. But that’s the thing, it was 40 years ago, the law was different.
The case as mentioned in the video was settled and Nintendo effectively successfully defended themselves in court.
As for those who are complaining “iF ninTenDO StOle BaCk thEn, WhY caNt I STeaL NOw”
Again, the law has since changed. It’s not the 1980’s anymore, it’s 2022. Back then copyright law was still being developed and was more than lenient. Now, it is a crucial part of society and violations have major consequences.
One issue I have with the video, is that it actively seeks to make Nintendo look like villains when at the time, there was no issue with what they did. At the time, they believed what they did was legal. And again at the time, it technically was.
People need to understand, the legal system isn’t something that is black and white. For example, verbal contracts, like they are today, are flimsy at best, and outright stupid at worst. And yet Ikegami sighed a documented contract giving the ownership of the game to Nintendo, as expressed in this video multiple times.
that's not how the law works
@@polocatfan what do you mean that’s not how it works. Laws change as times change. Laws are developed over time.
And when a law against a specific act doesn’t yet account for something or doesn’t exist yet. acts that would violate it, don’t. And no, you can’t just say “now we can persecute them again since the law changed” because that’s double jeopardy and yes, is illegal.
For a very extreme example, in the 1700’s, slavery in US was legal. Now it is obviously illegal.
Law’s change because of loopholes and missing parts, when this case happened, Japanese Copyright law wasn’t developed, and therefore copyright as a concept wasn’t really enforced.
You probably just said that comment thinking I didn’t know anything, and that a simple comment would make me say “oh no I’m so incorrect.”
Laws exist to protect the freedoms of others… at least in some places.
They also prevent wrongs from being committed on others.
So what part did I actually get wrong. You want to refute a point, bring evidence to back up your claim.
Edit: was fixing a typo
@@thelostician not saying your wrong but this is japan where talking about not the US. I’m not sure if double jeopardy is a thing in Japan also…
@@nocwilson0578 don’t worry I checked before I wrote that, Double Jeopardy does actually exist in Japan. It’s in article 39 of the constitution of Japan 1947.
It’s cool, I understand that line of concern. :)
Edit: sorry I meant it’s illegal to commit double jeopardy.
12:15 "Nintendo and Ikegami struck a deal out of court. The details of that deal were never made public."
*Oh, for crying out loud, really? I wanna know!*
Nintendo: Pirate game roms
Nintendo fans: forced to download copied roms because nintendo won't provide them
Irony?
Nintendo: *traumatizes children for piracy*
Also Nintendo: meh let’s do piracy and get sued
Seems like Ikegami was the Tose of their time - a shadow developer who made games for much bigger names while quietly letting the larger company take the credit (as long as they got paid).
0:04 iconic Nintendo HQ picture.
Well that's funny. They copyright strike a lot of people who happen to share their content (even if they credit Nintendo for it) but they stole a whole programming code from a different developer to claim it to be theirs and also took very obvious music inspiration from irl bands and used it for certain Mario music.. Talk about irony and hypocritical things
How strange to think they stole that engine of all things.
Imagine making a movie and then realizing that even though the movie, characters, and story was your idea and you own it, the script is not.
yeah, because it'd be dumb to own it, if you didn't make the script.
LOL. Hollywood does that shit ALL the time! Scripts and ideas are CONSTANTLY stolen. Its very common for studios to hear ideas pitched at them, they reject them, then make their own script from that idea so they dont have to buy the one pitched to them.
So Ikegami is still around today making broadcast cameras and medical cameras. So happy they are still around.
I love how kids are watching this video and coming to the conclusion of "this means that I should be able to make content with other peoples IP without repercussions".
what?
@@sofia.eris.bauhaus making fan games based on established ip's. The stupidest thing to do, especially for nintendo games
@@rohanrodrigues7115 i'm pretty sure your avatar is technically a copyright violation 😏.
and yes, i do think people _should_ be able to create derivative works, all creativity involves using previously existing concepts. like Mario being originally being a legally-distinct Popeye clone before becoming more of it's own thing.
i guess i can't advise people to make illegal artworks because i don't want to get them in trouble. but i also don't advise people to ever pay for access to copyrighted works. i've been avoiding to do that for about 15 years, and i'm not missing much.
@@sofia.eris.bauhaus my avatar is "technically" not a copyright violation 😉. As for your second para, yes, people can do that obviously, look at undertale. And judging from the third para, you don't pay for official works?
@@rohanrodrigues7115 i am very much for supporting artists, but outside of the copyright system. commissions, crowdfunding, and just donations are all ways of financing that don't rely on artificial monopolies and restricting access. i have a little playlist called "against monopoly" that gets go through various aspects, of you're interested.
most artists don't get much or anything out of copyright. so i'd hope we can make this a win-win arrangement. to be fair, i'm pretty short on money these days, so i'm not doing many donations. but i realize supporting artists in in my long-term interests, so i'll do it more if i can.
The Donkey Kong arcade game was displayed in portrait, essentially with a TV screen turned sideways in the cabinet, and the NES version was in landscape, which may have been a factor in deciding which version to port to newer devices.
And they’d go on to do it again with Sony. But that one really hurt…
Wait... why are the Ikegami and Nintendo logos so similar?!
Nintendo: You can't emulate our games!
Meanwhile,
Nintendo: Let's copy Donkey Kong's ROM.
Hypocritical Nintendo
I hope Nintendo loses rights to original design of DK, Jump man and Lady
Nintendo under Yamauchi was so friggen shady. I wonder how many yakuza ties they had.
Nintendo calls fanmade games of them anti-piracy they think they are making some illegal copies while some are fanmade and others are illegal.
Fanmades cannot be illegal unless you are contractually making money of them, which that NEVER happens.
0:26 part one; The shadow developer
7:42 part two; The sequel
10:19 part three; The lawsuit
Ironic for the guys who are sooooooo anti-piracy.
There was one more ocassion where Nintendo rereleased the original Donkey Kong.
Around 2004 or so, there was an Arcade cabinet that had Mario Bros., Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong JR.
I love to see how far you've come since I started watching you when you were just shy of 10.000 Subs and that you retained the same great vibes ^^ Wish you all the luck and hopefully soon half a million subs
Sounds more like Miyamoto was essentially the Program Director all along, but it is nice to know who also worked on the program to make it all happen. It is unfortunate that Nintendo may have had an oversight in buying the rights to the program code at that time, but it also appears that the code wasn't technically considered protected by copyright at the time it was done. I think it's a bit much to call it stolen or theft, as that wasn't the way it would have been understood in Japan in 1981. That said, it is good to see that they eventually did the right thing by purchasing the code after being penalized in court. This just shows that Nintendo was on the cutting edge of video gaming and literally had to have laws written to define the future of the industry.
Nintendo be like “it’s always -morally- legally correct to pirate Ikegami Tsushinki code”
I dont agree that it WAS ikegami's code. Hell, NOBODY knew who's code it was until a law was made up DURING THE LAWSUIT and then it was decided. Thats pretty slimy if the courts if you ask me.
Oh so its okay for Nintendo to download, copy & share someone else's ROMS but we cant? I see.
Nintendo: i've become the thing i sworn to destroy
Seeing as how the original Donkey Kong alone (not counting sequels, Country, Konga, or anything but literal ports of the first game) has made them well over 4 billion dollars over the years, I think they could part with $14 million.
This is really interesting, and it's why your channel is really helpful. Love your content and hope for more in the future!
The profit outweighed the legal fine. Basic business economics
Nintendo being Nintendo, all the way back then
Man the irony of present Nintendo not liking piracy
This is so crazy,thank you for telling this to us
6:41
Nintendo: It's illegal to make personal backup copies of our games (even though it's not, distributing it is)
Also Nintendo: Illegally dumps their own arcade game to circumvent contractual obligations.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Nintendo.
Could you imagine a timeline where Nintendo lost the rights of both Mario AND DK to Ikegami? Probably Kirby would be the face of Nintendo right now
Nice
the best timeline
And Pokemon would be alongside Kirby
Nah Probably Link from Zelda
Ikegami: nah we wont make our remaining 80 thousand copies
Nintendo: fine ill do it myself
Dear Nintendo, I paid full price for those games back in the 80s. The roms are mine and thats the end of it.
Yet Nintendo goes after you if you make a fan game
Remember: this is the same company who would cease and decist you for making fan games and mods, as well as issue DMCAs for uploading their music as they refuse to give you a place to listen to it.
I Think That This Might Be The Reason Why Donkey Kong Jr. Hasn't Been In A Game In Ages
Nintendo when they steal code for a game: This is fine.
Nintendo when you emulate a game that hasn’t been in print for 15 years: THIEF!
Ya really
It’s stupid
i love how this guy puts no ads in his videos and literally makes the captions himself.
Your channel is my favorite of all time. You tell great, unique stories and you do so consistently. I always look forward to your new uploads. Keep it up!
Nintendo copied Disney. Just look at Zelda. Link is Peter Pan and has a fairy Tinkerbell. Zelda falls asleep like Sleeping Beauty. Link pulls out the Master Sword like Sword in the Stone. There's so much more and no one ever called Nintendo out on it.
No they didnt and if they did Disney sucks and deserves to get copied off also Disney copied Kimba The White Lion(1965) to make Lion King and stole lots of inspiration from other Japanese anime for their films
That's why Nintendo is so anal about us downloading roms.
Nintendo: "you guys can't make free fan made Pokemon games"
Also Nintendo: "Teehee I stole game code"
Hello Thomas! I’m a fan, I’ve been watching your content since 2020. I have a pretty big gaming mystery you could research, since I have been looking into it and have barely any leads. On the Game Boy add on, the Game Boy Camera, there are some weird faces you can access. They appear to be Nintendo employees with strange doodles all over their face. There are 3 varieties in the International releases but in Japan, there are 2 more. As previously mentioned, I have been researching into this and have found one potential source. A guy on Reddit (great source, I know) stated that one of them had a similar facial structure to a composer who worked on the game, but that is all. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!
Where can I find the credits for the music used in this video? ;o
Compare that to now that Nintendo would hunt you down in person to make sure you won't ever enjoy life again.
Pretty sick but for us players a cool story nonetheless.
They jailed a guy for 10 YEARS (or around that) for some stupid thing
@@platinumdiamond7 no they didnt that never happened
@@platinumdiamond7 oh wait youre talking about the dude that made a switch malware and sold it as a hacking device yeah that due bricked peoples consoles
As a side note, I didn't know that DK Jr. had ideas Miyamoto couldn't add to the original DK.
It's pretty interesting to consider that you can sum up a lot of his career that way: Miyamoto wants to add something to Game A, but can't, then Game A becomes such a hit that it's difficult to imagine adding those features to an already iconic game, so a sequel is greenlit, and he ultimately gets to add those now-refined features to Game B.
Very coincidental that they recently busted a guy for $14M for doing something adjacent to what they've done all those years ago.
I'm surprised Nintendo didn't sue Gary Bowser over his last name.
@@johntracy72 they would've tried if they didn't hire one already.
Perhaps Nintendo decided to port the NES version so often due to better knowing how the NES works than the Arcade-Original hardware, making it easier to translate the NES version
"The world's most influential arcade game?"
Pac-Man asks, "what am I, chopped liver?"
I have no idea on what topic that could be covered, but I have a feeling a collaboration with the Gaming Historian would make for the most comprehensive documentary on video game topic to ever be covered. His channel is the only other one that does work comparable to this. Very good stuff Thomas Game Docs! Now excuse me while I subscribe and binge all of your videos.
They're the very thing they swore to destroy.
There is another Donkey Kong version released. It was the NES version and It was launched on Wii and 3DS virtual consoles, but unlike the old NES version, this one added a level from the arcade version that didn't make it to the original NES port due to the NES's hardware limitations.
The game on the virtual console is a NES rom, but adding that missing level which was the factory, making it 100% faithful to the Arcade version.
a classic style thomas game docs vid! amazing!
Time stamps:
0:00 Beginning
14:35 End
Loved the Danganronpa Music
fun fact: In 1984 MCA (Universal studios) sued nintendo because donkey kong looked simular to king kong as MCA thought
nothing was stolen, not even an existing law was broken. interesting story nonetheless.
Thinking is hard ehh
@@FallingStar1080 sorry 😇.
@@Nighttale233 well, maybe this helps you make an informed estimate: i think copyright is harmful, and Nintendo does big contributions to that harm. their persecution of rom sites and derivative works, their pushing of DRM and other "copy protection" garbage is making the world worse. it's an assault on free communication and free competition.
other game companies do similar shit of course, and some are definitely worse. but that is not an excuse for shitty behavior. they should be criticized, and i don't plan to buy anything from them. but i won't condemn them for being the victim of copyright, especially not retroactive copyright enforcement. copyright is a minefield as it is, retroactive copyright is absolutely terrifying for any creative person.