Maybe I will buy Donkey Kong 64 sooner than later

[BHvrd]

After reading this article and finding out that DK64 on VC still includes Jetpac and the original Donkey Kong and the speculation of prior and future legal problems, this could possibly end up getting pulled, maybe not, but still finding out the game still includes those extra games makes it worth purchasing regardless, and yeah DK64 I guess.

http://alwaysnintendo.com/the-potential-pitfalls-to-re-issue-donkey-kong-64-on-virtual-console/

[Leo_A]

After reading this article and finding out that DK64 on VC still includes Jetpac and the original Donkey Kong and the speculation of prior and future legal problems, this could possibly end up getting pulled

I didn't bother to read the article, since it's nonsense that there's potential legal problems with this title. For starters, Nintendo's legal team aren't idiots and wouldn't release something that isn't in the clear. Secondly, where's the lawsuit from last time with arcade Donkey Kong, if they did this illegally as that article seems to suggest, judging by your post?


Jetpac

If it gets pulled before the service itself is discontinued, it will be because their license with Rare for the use of Jetpac and permission to display their trademark in such places as the introduction, has expired. Nintendo owns Donkey Kong 64 itself, but those trademarks and copyrights associated with Rare's property of course went with Rare when they were sold, and can't be used today without their permission. So it's license those assets, or edit the code and strip that material out. As the Donkey Kong Country trilogy showed on the original VC, such a thing of course comes with an expiration date.


original Donkey Kong

I assume the nonsense about arcade Donkey Kong that's probably in this article, has to do with a 25 year old legal issue that predates Donkey Kong 64 by a number of years. It was an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with something like the trademark itself for the original arcade game, the game concept, etc. It was purely due to the source code itself. Since this is a recreation of the arcade original rather than an emulation, there's no possible issue there since that code simply isn't even here in any shape or form.

The glory of commercial emulation is that it allows multiple classic games to be up and running, at a mere fraction of the effort that porting or recreating all that material would cost. But emulation in and itself isn't a trivial matter, so Rare would've had no incentive to emulate this single title rather than simply recreate it. If logic or the minor issues that keep this from being arcade perfect isn't enough to convince, people have actually compared the code. From what I've read several years back, there's apparently no trace of arcade Donkey Kong code present here.

Plus, I strongly suspect that the 2005 arcade release, which fully credits Nintendo with ownership, is probably emulation based since it includes three arcade classics that all ran on the same hardware (A situation that emulation is ideal for), which further cast doubts about this alleged issue. And that lawsuit was settled long ago. We're not privy to what the end result was, but there's little reason to assume that a settlement, if one was even necessary due to his ownership being proven (We don't even know that much), didn't include the full transfer of ownership over to Nintendo.

[Leo_A]

That wasn't meant to end up so long...