Nintendo is known for being fairly litigious when it comes to protecting its copyrighted franchises. Just last week, popular TikToker andTwitch streamer Pokeprincxssrevealed she was forced to change her online name and persona by Nintendo to protect itsPokemonbrand. It seems Nintendo has been on a roll, as now a popular fan-madeZelda game,known asThe Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link, has also been shut down.
Made by popularMariogame modder Kaze Emanuar,The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Linkis meant to fill in the story gap betweenOcarina of TimeandMajora’s Mask. Nintendo’s two Zelda games on the N64 are part of the same Zelda storyline, but how young Link makes it from the end ofOcarinaand the start ofMajora’s Maskis a bit of a mystery. The game was created using assets from Nintendo’s original N64 games, including 3D models, the map, and the music, which Emanuar and those he was working with remixed.
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But now, the GitHub page where the game was being hosted has been taken down, and a copy of the copyright claim from Nintendo’s legal team has been posted there instead. The document states that, “Nintendo has reviewed the reported material and does not believe it qualifies as a fair use of Nintendo’s copyright-protected work.” Videos of the game from sites like YouTube have also been removed under similar grounds.
The Missing Linknow joins a long list of terminated fan creations utilizing Nintendo IP, with the most recent addition prior beinga XXX-rated flash game centering around Princess Peach. An interesting wrinkle is that unlike pornographic princess flash games,The Missing Linktechnically qualifies as a mod, as it required a ROM of the originalOcarina of Timegame to function. Someone may argue that owning a cartridge of the original N64 game entitles the owner to have a ROM of the game and modify it on a computer, but that argument has yet to make it to a court room.
Many have commented on Nintendo’s aggressive protection of its IP, often comparing it to The Walt Disney Company and the way it protects the likes of Mickey Mouse,Star Wars, and Marvel. While fans may not like things like aSuper Mario 64PC portor multiplePokemonfan games being shut down, it is well within Nintendo’s rights to do so. Many also point to Sega and how it handles fan creations of its properties likeSonic the Hedgehog,by embracing and promoting them, even going to far as to hire fans on multiple occasions.
Nintendo hasn’t only been fighting battles on the software side of things either. Recently, Nintendo won a lawsuit barring the sale of the SX Pro from several websites, a device that enabled the loading of pirated games onto the Nintendo Switch. That was quickly followed by theFBI arresting two key leaders from the team that made the SX Proand other piracy devices.
