Nintendo Shutting Down Fan Sites?

UPDATE: Well, crap. As LightAce pointed out in the comments, it looks like this was all just an April Fools joke on the FriendCodes moderators that got out of hand. It wasn’t meant to get on Digg and receive as much exposure as it has. On the plus side, it’s nice to know Nintendo isn’t really this stupid.

Talk about not being able to take a compliment. Apparently, a handful of Nintendo fan sites have been receiving cease and desist notices from Nintendo of America demanding that they remove their websites due to copyright infringment. The fan-made community, FriendCodes.com, is probably the most prominent one since they encouraged their users to post the story on Digg and explained what was happening in a forum post:

Basically Nintendo is “asking” us to remove the site files that are infringing the copyright (such as the logo, which contains the word “friendcodes”), and to drop the domain name for the same reason. Corey just responded to the emails tonight, and is going to talk to a NOA rep. (hopefully) Monday over the phone. But honestly, it looks bad. They’ve been sending the emails for almost a month now with no response, so they’re very serious about it right now. We’re still talking about what to do, but it looks like we will have to shut down the site temporarily, until it all gets worked out. Of course, if it works out Nintendo’s way, we’ll be closed down permanently. Naturally, we’re going to try and keep that from happening, but like I said, it doesn’t look good.

This isn’t the first time a fan site has been shut down by the group it’s praising for copyright infringment. Granted it’s a pretty well-founded argument, but you still have to wonder what’s going through this legal team’s minds. I’d like to see what the letter the websites received says: “Dear such and such, please stop saying how great we are. In fact, would you please shut down the massive group you’ve created to specifically promote how awesome we are? Thank you: Nintendo. P.S. Thanks for your support!”

Via FriendCodes