🚀 go-pugleaf

By Kenneth Kidd, Toronto Globe and Mail [excerpted without comment - BS]

A suburban Toronto company's gadget used to alter the Super Mario
video game infringes on Nintendo's copyright and the "moral rights" of
Super Mario's Japanese creator, says Nintendo of America Inc.

Instead of enhancing the game, the Game Genie sold by Camerica Corp.
of Unionville, Ontario, simply makes the video amusement easier to
play, Nintendo maintains.

...

In a statement of claim filed last week with the Federal Court of
Canada, Nintendo is seeking an injunction against sales of the product
and unspecified damages.

"What's at stake is the integrity of the video game market," Penman
said last week.

"What they want to do is put Genie back in the bottle -- theirs,"
countered David Harding, president of Camerica.

The Game Genie ... allows players to pick three special features ...
as variations on the basic Super Mario games sold by Nintendo.

The altering device, for which Camerica has world rights, is a
cartridge that attaches to the Nintendo cartridge.  The mated
cartridges are then inserted into the Nintendo game terminal.  The
game's action proceeds as usual, except for the alterations requested.

...

Because the Game Genie can let Mario overcome [game] foes more easily,
Harding said disabled or less dextrous people can enjoy a video game
they otherwise couldn't play.

...

Nintendo of America says the Game Genie infringes on Nintendo's
copyright and trademark.

The game altering ability of the Camerica device also infringes on
"the moral rights to the integrity of the literary, dramatic and
artistic works in the Mario games in Canada."  Those rights, according
to Nintendo's statement of claim, are held by Super Mario's inventor,
Shigeru, Miyamoto.

For now, Harding's gadget isn't available here.  In June, the U.S.
District Court in California granted Nintendo's request for a
temporary injunction against Game Genie's U.S. distributor.