Your console, your cartridge, you choose? Nintendo faces a challenge

If you read our articles, you will notice that we usually feature images related to the topics we are talking about. If they come from another source and they are not under CC license or similar, they are the property of someone else, but we use them according to a doctrine known as fair use. Extracts of copyrighted material may be used within fair use for purposes such as journalistic reporting. So, for example, we can use a copyrighted image of Captain America if we're writing about Marvel superheroes. Some content owners are still trying to stop this, and this is one that [Linus Tech Tips] has its sights set on as they've published a guide to running Nintendo Switch games on a Steam Deck without they believe they give justifiable cause for the notoriously litigious gaming giant to act. It's full of neatly fuzzy Nintendo IPs, and there's no coverage of pirated software downloads.

On the one hand, it's an overbearing console developer taking out small online content producers, but there's another angle that's much more relevant to the hardware community that reads Hackaday. It also has application in the field of software emulation, because if the console maker would prefer to stop all but their own unmodified hardware running a game, there should be nothing to prevent legally owned software or hardware from being run in any way. whatever way its owner chooses. This is the central thesis explored at the end of the video, and the trick to trying to bring Nintendo into the open on the issue is how they advertise.

Even though [Linus Tech Tips] is probably one of the most viewed tech YouTube channels, it's clear that Nintendo will have the deepest pockets if it chooses to step up to the bait. So we're sure their lawyers are all over it as we write, but we'd be interested to see if the claims made in the video are enough to see it stick. It would be nice to think this might cause Nintendo to reconsider some of its policies, but we're not holding our breath.

If you are interested in the subject of intellectual property, we have already covered it.

Our header image definitely does not belong to Nintendo, it is from Blogtrepreneur, CC BY 2.0.