The ROM is their copyright, so this is the same thing as someone at Universal records 'torrenting one of their artist's discographies and selling it on a DVD instead of using their own archives (though this analogy holds true only if Nintendo acquired an originally unauthorized ROM dump made by an unaffiliated third-party and simply repackaged it in the Virtual Console - it could also just be the case that Nintendo made their own ROM dump but used the same tools as the scurvy pirates, that way it would still have the same ROM file header).
I'm far more interested to learn if the Virtual Console itself uses any open-source code to power the emulator - and if it means there's a potential GPL or other copyleft license violation going on - because that would be deliciously ironic for their very strong anti-(unauthorized)-emulation stance - what better endorsement than to have your own open-source emulator repurposed by Nintendo themselves?
It's a little more than the torrenting analogy. The ROM is in a format that was developed by and for emulators that they claim should not exist. They relied on the work put in by emulator creators that they tried to fight into nonexistence.
Your last paragraph is pertinent question. But even if not an infringement, it is surely hypocrisy of the highest order.
They used a format someone else defined. I don't know why you think that's hypocritical. It's not like defining a new file format is especially hard. If the format hadn't already existed, they could have created their own equivalent format. But since it does exist, it seems perfectly reasonable for Nintendo to re-use that format.
The format isn't the hypocrisy. Nintendo has always been very consistently anti-emulation. They always attempt to frame emulators as software that enables "downloading illegally copied software"[1] to be played on "unauthorized hardware"[1].
Of course they never mention the word "emulator" when talking about their "virtual console" games or their GBA "ports" of NES games that simply emulated the original ROM.
Virtual console and the NES classic are legally copied software played on authorized hardware, so it's not the same thing as what they've vivified. If you stuff illegally copied roms onto your mini NES, they're not really going to be happy either - I don't see how this is hypocritical.
This isn't about legal status. It's Nintendo's well-known bad attitude towards any use of their products that is even slightly outside their intended use.
(Also, copyright is generally civil, not criminal. Copying a copyright protected work shouldn't be described as "illegal" or a crime, but may make you civilly liable for damages.)
>> They always attempt to frame emulators as [...]
For many, many years Nintendo tried to pain emulators as only being used to infringe copyright. They are have been dissembling about emulation (and copyright) for >15 years. "Emulator" is a bad word to Nintendo, far more so than other video game companies.
This is why they called the network downloads on the Wii a "Virtual Console" (it's kind of like the original console, just "virtual"). They claim that the NES Classic "...is a miniaturized version of the groundbreaking NES, originally released in 1985."[1] which implies that they may have something resembling an actual 6502 when it's actually an Allwinner R16 SoC running Linux[2] and a software NES emulator.
You're being overly pedantic. Yes, Nintendo says emulators are used to copyright infringement, but it should be blindingly obvious that they mean third-party emulators. Nintendo owns the actual hardware AND the games in question, so there's nothing at all wrong with them doing their own emulation, because they're obviously not infringing upon their own copyright.
> there's nothing at all wrong with them doing their own emulation
I never claimed otherwise.
> they're obviously not infringing upon their own copyright.
Obviously. Nobody is claiming otherwise.
> You're being overly pedantic.
Perhaps, if you're referring to the straw man you're creating.
I'm talking about their attitude and their attempt to frame "emulation" as "piracy". Just like the movie studios that try to frame bittorrent as only a pirate tool, Nintendo has consistently refused to even acknowledge the existence of non-piracy uses of emulation. Now, many years later, Nintendo is just barely starting to understand that emulators have more uses than what their own rhetoric has claiming.
The conversation in the past has always been about third parties emulating hardware they don't own the copyright to, in order to play software they don't own the copyright to. Nintendo owns both the hardware and software, so even if they're using emulation technologies under the hood rather than actually porting the game to the new hardware, what difference does that make?
I'm far more interested to learn if the Virtual Console itself uses any open-source code to power the emulator - and if it means there's a potential GPL or other copyleft license violation going on - because that would be deliciously ironic for their very strong anti-(unauthorized)-emulation stance - what better endorsement than to have your own open-source emulator repurposed by Nintendo themselves?