Back in February, Nintendo made a very out-of-character move and provided access to a huge library of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl’s sound effects and music, even encouraging people to use them in their own (non-commercial) projects. What a lovely thing to do! So of course, three months later, it’s closing it down.
The Pokémon DP Sound Library is an archive of music and sound effects from the 2006 game (and not the recent remakes), which actively encouraged the public to nab the tunes and use them in their own personal projects. From Nintendo, a company we’re far more used to reporting on for stamping on tiny homebrew fan projects, this seemed a super-positive move. So, just as The Pokémon Company announces record profits, Nintendo is taking the whole thing offline.
The library project is surprisingly friendly in its allowances, given this is Nintendo we’re talking about. It lets people use the music from the game as background music on YouTube videos, play it at non-commercial public events like parties and plays, or even have it played as you walk into weddings.
At the same time, and unsurprisingly, this wasn’t ever the copyleft release it could have been, and commercial re-use is not allowed. Oh, and users had better be super-careful, as it also disallows some fairly ambiguous purposes, including “anything that makes a specific ideological, religious, or political claim.” Which is, y’know, everything ever.
Now (as spotted by Eurogamer), for reasons ungiven, the whole lot is being taken off the internet. The site’s front page now explains that come May 31, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. UTC, the whole thing will be gone. Maybe someone at Nintendo found out they’d made someone smile without first charging $59.99, and that cannot be tolerated.
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The message goes on to explain that people will still be able to use the music and effects they’ve downloaded, so long as they do so “within the scope of the Terms of Use and Guidelines,” which of course will be significantly harder to find once they’ve removed them from the website. Which should at least give their miserable lawyers some fun in the future, once said rules have been long forgotten.
Quite why such a fun and pleasingly-presented project should be snuffed out just three months after launch is unclear. We’ve asked Nintendo what’s up, and will update should they let us know. In the meantime, go download the whole lot right now because it’s gone tomorrow morning.