Nintendo’s legal team has swooped in once again, filing a copyright claim on a fan-made Legend of Zelda game which has forced the project to be entirely delisted.
Well-known modder Kaze Emanuar, who has been releasing a number of unofficial Nintendo-based projects over the last few years, launched a title called ‘The Missing Link’ earlier this year. The game made use of the very same engine from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and aimed to bridge the gap between Ocarina, and later N64 title, Zelda: Majora’s Mask.
The game was available from GitHub, but following the copyright claim, has since been removed. Spotted by Torrentfreak, the complaint reads as follows:
“The copyrighted works are the video games in Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda video game franchise, including without limitation the audio-visual works, story lines, characters, and imagery in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000901848), The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0001940271), and others.
Nintendo has reviewed the reported material and does not believe it qualifies as a fair use of Nintendo’s copyright-protected work.”
It goes on to ask GitHub’s page to be removed, saying that it “provides access to a software file that contains an unauthorized derivative work of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda video game franchise in violation of Nintendo’s exclusive rights.”
It’s worth noting that the complaint only asked for the project’s removal, and didn’t spark a lawsuit or further trouble for the parties involved.
Further Reading:
https://www.sickgaming.net/blog/2020/10/...b%bfclaim/