Final Update

As promised, here's more on the recent DMCA notices.

Last week six notices were sent from brand-protection@mm-nintendo.com with the following text:

I write to report that the website listed below includes links to images that infringe on copyrights owned by Nintendo of America Inc. A full list of URLs with infringing images. In addition, the site displays Nintendo’s trademarks and other intellectual property (including characters) which is likely to lead to consumer confusion.

A list of Vault urls followed. Images in The Vault consist of box scans, disc scans, and title screens. Just to be safe all media was taken offline.

I've read lots of speculation this request is fake and people make many good points, yet circumstantial evidence (no matter how juicy) is not proof. Here's some of the biggest claims.

1. mm-nintendo.com is a fake domain that's not owned nor operated by Nintendo.
Corporations contract out services all the time. That doesn't make them any less real. mm-nintendo.com is registered by MarkMonitor, a known brand protection company. The operator claims to represent Nintendo of America and Garry's Mod can attest they do.

2. It's a DMCA troll spoofing mm-nintendo.com.
Email spoofing is easy to do but nowadays it's just as easy to detect.

3. It's too random to be real and there's obvious mistakes. It must be a troll.
Fair point, but there's two little letters nobody's talking about.
A. I.
Picture a crude bot with lax oversight and suddenly it all makes sense.

Look closer and mm-nintendo.com uses opsecsecurity.com for email. One of their services is Protecting Online Brand Identity and Reputation and this feature jumps out:

Visual Artificial Intelligence (AI) to spot more forms of infringement.
Infringements often manifest in online brand logos, trademarked text, and product imagery. Our platform uses Visual AI to focus on these visual aspects of branding and related media. By augmenting text-based detection, Visual AI is not restricted by channel, and also mitigates emerging threats. Visual AI organizes potential infringements by indicators found in the image for efficiency and enforcement at scale.

Sounds perfect for detecting screen shots of Nintendo games. Some of the claims are clearly invalid (like Kamisama no Marionette) but frankly it's not worth poking the bear. Ultimately this whole fuss could have been avoided by just removing images from the start, and few would likely notice they're gone. Downloads have been restored but to appease Skynet the box scans, disc scans, and title screens of the requested games will remain offline.

I've read lots of speculation online and people make some very good points. I'm still piecing things together, but everything's quiet right now and I hope to explain more next weekend.