Over the weekend a high-definition recreation of Super Mario 64's first level, Bob-Omb Battlefield, went viral. The remake was created by computer science student Erik Ross as a way to demonstrate his Custom Character Controller (a developer tool for Unity).
It would seem as though Nintendo didn't share the same enthusiasm as the rest of the internet, as they have set their legal team on the recreation. It's entire existence is a breach of copyright.
Nintendo's takedown notice mentions a breach of copyright for "Nintendo's Super Mario 64 video game (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000788138), including but not limited to the audiovisual work, computer program, music, and fictional character depictions".
In regards to Nintendo's issue with files being ripped from other Mario games, Ross admits:
"All the art and animations were done by myself, with the exception of the Mario, Goomba and Power Star meshes, which are ripped (without animations) from Super Mario Galaxy…A large portion of the sounds are from existing Mario games, while the ones I found and edited myself are from freesound.org."
You can still download the HD remake of Bob-Omb Battlefield through Ross' site.
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