It's Friday afternoon, which means it's an excellent time to check out Full Screen Mario. It's basically an exact HTML5 replica of the NES classic—same graphics, same music, all the same original levels. Only difference is you just move Mario around with your computer’s arrow keys instead of a controller.It’s like time warp back to the 80s, and naturally it's blown up online. So it comes as no surprise that Nintendo's trying to take it down for copyright infringement.The company told the Washington Post in a statement, "Nintendo is seeking the removal of the content, as we vigorously protect against infringement of our intellectual property rights."See, Nintendo still makes some money off the retro game through its Virtual Console service. And since the company's having trouble making money these days, it's understandable it'd have a knee jerk reaction to anything threatening to siphon off part of its revenue stream.On the other hand, Nintendo turning copyright cop on a DIY website is a classic example of what's increasingly seen as overly strict and outdated copyright law in the US. Copyright protection has been expanded to last 95 years now—by the time Super Mario becomes public domain, we'll probably be playing video games in space. Or at least, the old school game will have missed its window of relevance and no one will feel inspired to copy, remix, or build on it anyway.Projects like Full Screen Mario, on the other hand, are the epitome of the free and open internet ethos. The site was programmed by computer science student Josh Goldberg, is open-source, and the code is available on Github so anyone can create their own levels.Nintendo's certainly within its legal right to squash the copycat site, but it'll risk angering fans and probably won’t do any favors for the company's reputation. "I think it would be a really jerk move for Nintendo to take it down," Goldberg told the Post. "To take it down would be a spit in the face to web developers and game enthusiasts everywhere."Alas, check it out now while it's still up. It's nostalgic gold.
Advertisement