Nintendo has filed a DMCA takedown for fan-made software “Heaven Studio,” a tool that allows users to upload their own music and pair it with one of the rhythm-based mini-games in the Rhythm Heaven series.
As reported by TorrentFreak (thanks to VGC ), Heaven Studio’s GitHub repository has been taken down at the request of Nintendo, citing copyright for assets contained within the software.
The developer of the tool said on Twitter that despite having received fake takedown notices from people claiming to be from Nintendo, this latest complaint appears to be genuine.
Nintendo’s legal experts have been active lately in issuing takedown orders against musicians and sheet music, and the details are a bit hazy, but given that Heaven Studio is utilizing the game’s original assets (both art and sound effects), it seemed like it was only a matter of time before Nintendo brought in the ninjas.
Heaven Studio’s GitHub page now only displays a takedown notice.
Why now? That’s difficult to say, given the popularity of videos on YouTube (see below for an example).Rhythm Paradise The best case scenario for European fans is perhaps Nintendo has a new game coming out soon and is trying to gear up to make sure people don’t confuse Heaven Studio and its videos with the official game. The last game in the series was Rhythm Heaven Megamix, an excellent “greatest hits” game released on 3DS in 2016, so Switch owners don’t have their own copy of Rhythm Heaven yet.
Meanwhile, the creators of Heaven Studio insist that this isn’t the end, saying, “Heaven Studio has not disappeared and has no plans to disappear, but it will be quiet for a while. We need to make some big changes and those changes will take time.”
If you’ve used Heaven Studio or enjoyed any of their videos, let us know below. Do you think this is a sign that something official is on the way (our hearts are pounding!), or is Nintendo just protecting their IP as usual with seemingly random attacks?
