Remember the arcade game Donkey Kong that was released by Nintendo in 1981? Well, the game brings back nostalgic memories and feelings. Donkey Kong’s gameplay focuses on maneuvering the main character across a series of platforms while dodging the obstacles. The main character is on a mission to rescue a damsel in distress. Donkey Kong is one of the most popular arcade games of all time – so popular that several developers have created their own remakes of the game to give the current generation the “feel” of 1980’s arcade games. Unfortunately, one such remake for Roku has been taken down by Nintendo.
Nintendo takes down Donkey Kong remake for Roku
It looks like Nintendo isn’t happy with Donkey Kong remake. Marcelo Lv Cabral, software developer living in Arizona, had released an unofficial version of the 1981 classic game for Roku. He started the project as a hobby and later released the code on GitHub. The developer had made his intent clear by putting up a disclaimer –
This source code was developed as a programming exercise, it is not being used for profit or any kind of financial gain, all assets and images belong to the original copyright owner
In spite of the disclaimer, Nintendo feels that the repository violates its copyright since it contains a recreation of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong for Roku, created and published with the company’s permission. Nintendo, in its take down notice wrote –
The reported repository contains a recreation of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong video game for Roku, which was created and published without Nintendo’s authorization. Please immediately remove the repository.
The developer, clearly, is disappointed that his remake has been taken down. Cabral believes that Nintendo has no right to take down his code, which was done completely by himself and did not include porting of any Nintendo code. However, Cabral has no plans of challenging the takedown.
“I believe they have the rights related to the name and the assets, but not to my code. That was completely done by myself, no porting of any Nintendo code, but GitHub took down everything. What I don`t understand is why only my project was removed, if you search Donkey Kong on the GitHub you`ll found several other remake projects” Cabral told TorrentFreak.
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