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Call To Action: Remove Illegal Nintendo ROMs From The WP7 Marketplace

As you’re probably aware, there are several games in the Windows Phone Marketplace that are direct ports of Nintendo games. These aren’t clones. They have all of the cheat codes, etc in tact and it appears as though these were ROMs that were converted to Silverlight and then brought into the Marketplace. You may ask why Microsoft has not acted on this. It’s been explained to me that if Microsoft takes action then going forward they have a responsibility to police every application. If they take no action then they don’t have liability. If Nintendo (or the real developer in any other case) makes a claim then Microsoft can remove it without being responsible for policing. It’s a legal technical issue in the end.

Regardless, I don’t think it’s good for developers or the Marketplace as a whole to have these types of games in it. If you want ripped off games then there’s an OS for that and it’s not Windows Phones. As end users, we’re better when developers’ intellectual property rights are protected from such egregious violations.

if you want to help remove these apps then send an email to piracyscene@noa.nintendo.com and note these applications:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/89eeb1b2-c147-4cd2-9975-333bd3d33f2e

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/d8d33570-4682-42d7-a630-bf902ca814e1

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/1740c542-69f4-4a8c-afe7-e2a3bac5e71b

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/apps/2f39b6ed-1471-4eea-a9d6-66b442b709cd

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