That Portal 64 demake we liked so much has been kiboshed by Valve: 'They have asked me to take the project down,' creator says
billothekid2@kbin.social to 
pcgamer.com
Honestly, a bit surprised by this. It wasn't even on Steam. Hopefully switching to an open source SDK will get this back up.
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How do grown ass adults look at this and think anything other than "damn, that's pretty cool!"? Literally nobody and no company has any conceivable money to lose over this and couldn't convince me otherwise. Law should have nothing to do with all this pussyfooting about legality.
Valve removed it because it used official N64 APIs that Nintendo holds as classified information. I think if it had totally been bottom-up crafted from scratch, it would have survived. But Valve does NOT wanna deal with a Nintendo lawyer.
Classified?
APIs fall under fair use: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/how-the-supreme-court-saved-the-software-industry-from-api-copyrights/
Hi, Android dev here. This is a different issue albeit a tangential one. But ultimately it has no bearing on the matter.
The Oracle v Google case revolves around Google's reimplementation of the Java APIs on the Android platform. This is key. Back when Android started, they used Apache Harmony to provide the Java API set on Android. Harmony was an open source implementation of the Java API set. Sun (the creator of Java) didn't care, they held the copyright to the Java implementation, but made their money in different ways, so they let the Harmony project live.
Fast forward a decade. The Apache Harmony project is dead. Android is stuck at Java 6 level APIs because of it, Android devs are annoyed they can't even get Java 8 features. And Oracle bought Sun, and is monetizing the shit out of Java. They started charging money for the official Java SDK. Google didn't want to pay Oracle, so they started reimplementing the newer Java APIs into Android, to pick up where Harmony had left off. Oracle saw this, found some code in Google's reimplementation that was similar to the official implementation from Oracle (which is out in the open in the openjdk project) and sued the shit out of them looking for the payday they didn't get when Google refused to pay Oracle a license.
Ultimately, the SCOTUS ruling says that APIs themselves are not copyrightable (ie you can't copyright the .toString() function name). But you can copyright the implementation of that function. Ultimately Oracle still won a bit, because they found something like 6 function reimplementations that Google could not successfully defend as clean room implementations.
Why this is irrelevant to the Portal64 issue, is because the dev is not using the open source reimplementation of the Nintendo APIs. He's literally using the Nintendo owned implementation of the APIs. That's why he says he needs to switch to open source libraries. Those open source libraries have the same functions within them, but the implementation of said functions aren't the same as the Nintendo ones (or they are and Nintendo just hasn't sued the project into oblivion yet, I have no idea about the details).
Then the people here using the term "API" should have rather used "libraries" or "frameworks" or whatever. I cannot look myself because the Github repo is private now.
Well, libraries are collections of APIs and sdks are usually collections of libraries. So they're unfortunately kind of interchangeable when discussing them. But I agree with you the correct thing would be to say they're using Nintendo's proprietary libraries.
An API is a specification of what functions are called and how they behave. See for example "Microsoft Windows provides the Win32 API" and "WINE provides the Win32 API on Linux" and also "Photoshop provides an API to write plugins" and "Affinity Photo provides the Photoshop API to support Photoshop plugins".
When people, who don't even know that finished the Portal64 ROM uses original Portal PC art assets copyrighted by Valve, try to lecture me about Valve acting as a henchman for Nintendo because of Nintendo APIs, I obviously dismiss them because they clearly have no clue about anything, even if by pure luck they may have a point regarding your definition of API use.
I like tech history. Loved your explanation about the Google vs Oracle legal battle.
Wait but why is Valve involved at all, then? Not like it's their fault that some people they have nothing to do with are building a game based on those APIs, so shouldn't Nintendo approach the developers of the port directly instead?
Valve holds the copyright to Portal, so Nintendo probably just "encouraged" them to pull some strings.
Nintendo have their own litigation-happy lawyers. With the exception of the Portal Collection release for Switch, both companies have nothing to do with each other.
Nintendo sues everyone they encounter in the faintest context of their IP with the power of a thousand suns. See also, the failed launch if Dolphin on Steam. Valve is justifiably cautious here.
Valve doesn't distribute the port.
Doesn’t matter
If fact it does for the claim that Nintendo would sue Valve otherwise.
Right, but what the heck is up with Nintendo clinging into ancient obsolete stuff? They're not stupid right?
Yes, Nintendo is stupid. They see capitalism as a zero-sum game, and so any time someone has or keeps their own money, that's the same as Nintendo losing that money, so they do whatever they're legally able to do to ruin people financially, going as far as taking 30% of your income for the rest of your life if you do wrong by them.
No but Nintendo is fiercely protective of all of its IP. We know there's not really harm being done here but it is within their rights to block this and that is the road they always choose.
I may be overinterpreting this but it almooost seems, if you stretch it a bit, as if valve saved poor guys. Valve said stop, Nintendo'd say pay up.
Why do grown adults keep using IP copyrighted by big companies? Unofficial ports, unofficial remakes, unofficial sequels, etc. get taken down all the time and yet constantly the creators think "no, my project is special. It'll be spared that fate" and almost every time they're wrong.
A Portal-like game without using Portal assets and Valve had no leg to stand on...
This wasn't taken down because it was based on Portal. It has nothing to do with Portal or Valve, really. It was taken down becuase it uses the official N64 SDK, which is still for some reason considered "confidential." Valve said to take it down either under duress from Nintendo, or because Valve expected to be under duress from Nintendo and didn't want to be. If it had used the libdragon API library instead of Nintendo's official one, then this wouldn't have happened and Nintendo would have been told to bite rocks.
You have no clue. It was Valve who issued the DMCA takedown. Yes, based on the wrong argument that APIs are copyrighted by Nintendo but Valve cannot take down random software. They are only involved because it uses Portal assets.
I think you need to read the comment you replied to again.
Here's the bullet points:
Valve doesn't want Nintendo getting involved
Valve think Nintendo will get involved because the project is using confidential Nintendo code
Valve think Nintendo may litigate (or are already) against them because Portal is Valve's IP
Valve want it down so Nintendo can't mistake it to be Valve's responsibility and so Valve don't get the blame
Valve is only involved because the game uses Valve's assets. It's not so hard to understand. Nintendo didn't even issue the takedown. Valve did.
Neither I or the person you replied to have said Nintendo have issued this takedown. That is not what we said
Exactly. Valve did because the port uses Valve assets. That's what I said.
You are both correct, Valve don't want to deal with Nintendo. Nintendo wouldnt like this project because it uses their proprietary SDK. Portal is Valve's IP, so it would be Valve getting the call from Nintendo (or they already did), so Valve had to request a takedown.
Why would Valve get a call from Nintendo? The N64 port isn't distributed via Steam. It's on GitHub, so Microsoft would get the call.
Because it's associated with Valve. Valve not being protective enough of their own IP and letting this stuff slide is not what Nintendo wants. Also I don't think it's actually using any Valve made assets right? Isn't it using newly created textures and models that were made for this project specifically?
It's not. It's not on Steam, it's not distributed by Valve in any other way. It's located on GitHub, therefore "associated" with Microsoft in that it uses Microsoft's code hosting service.
Just because someone technically commits a copyright violation and Valve usually shrugs this off, doesn't mean that they're Nintendo's contact.
Also, and most importantly, APIs fall under fair use: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/04/how-the-supreme-court-saved-the-software-industry-from-api-copyrights/
Nintendo did not ask the game to be taken down, just as Nintendo didn't even initiate the takedown of Dolphin from Steam several months ago. It was Valve who initiated the contact to Nintendo back then. That's why Dolphin is still on Github.
WTF, I get lectured by people who did not even bother to watch a playthrough on YouTube? At the very least all audio is ripped straight out of real Portal and then converted. Everyone who even cared to watch only a few seconds of gameplay on YouTube would immediately recognize this.
https://www.ign.com/articles/dont-be-mad-at-valve-here-says-creator-of-cancelled-portal-64
It wasn’t a DMCA. They advised the dude to take it down due to Nintendo bring Nintendo.
This information is really easy to look up.
People here are constantly claiming that Nintendo demanded from Valve to take action in order to not get sued. I suggest you complain to the paid authors of PC Gamer because they are the ones writing about Valve lawyers: "there's at least a possibility Valve could end up sucked into a dispute over it. Even if it's only tangential involvement, Valve's lawyers may have just decided that it's not worth the headache."
It started out as a fun project by just a normal guy.
It is literally not possible to make a game like this any other way.
I would bet the concept goes underground and continues tho.
He uses Valve IP, therefore Valve was even the position to make any demands in the first place.
Valve cannot just go through the homebrew community and demand takedowns of random games. They could in this case solely because they own the assets. How is this so hard to understand that I have to repeat myself over and over again?
Do you think it's hard to understand?
I don't think you understand that it was started as a fun side project to see if he could actually do it. He wasn't trying to make the next AAA game
Why would a grown ass adult put so much effort into an unlicensed dupilcation of copyrighted IP (Valve) and build it on top of a system from a company known for ridiculous enofrcement of IP that had a walled garden of access to their game system IP that is protected by the copyright cabal supported DMCA?
There's more sides and nuance to all of this.
He could've made Portal in the style of a 90s console instead of directly declaring it N64 and only had to tend with permission for it as a mod from Valve's sometimes permissive pov without crazy assed 'Tendo being involved.
Because that's cool as fuck.
If he did it your way, that defeats the purpose of the constraints in the exercise.