Atlus USA Issues Takedown Notice to PS3 Emulator Developers

The development team of the RPCS3 open-source PlayStation 3 emulator revealed on its Reddit account on Wednesday that Atlus USA issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice against the project's Patreon crowdfunding page on Saturday. AtlusUSA requested that RPCS3's developers Nekotekina and kd-11 remove the Patreon page due to its mentions of the Persona 5 game.

According to the developers, Atlus USA said:
The PS3 emulator itself is not infringing on our copyrights and trademarks; however, no version of the [Persona 5] game should be playable on this platform; and [the RPCS3] developers are infringing on our IP by making such games playable.

However, Patreon declined to remove the page because it judged that the page itself does not infringe on Atlus USA's copyrights. The emulator's developers said that Atlus USA then replied, "We kindly ask that you remove both for this reason – to make Persona 5 work on the emulator, the user has to circumvent our DRM protections." The emulator's developers have since removed all references to the Persona 5 game from the project's Patreon page.


Atlus USA posted a statement about the DMCA takedown notice on its official website on Wednesday. The company said that it does not want fans' first experience with its titles to have "framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen." Atlus USA also said:

Unfortunately, when our content is illegally circumvented and potentially made available for free, in a format we do not think delivers the experience and quality we intend, it undermines our ability to do so by diverting potential support from new audiences.

In addition, Atlus USA said it understands that fans may want a PC version of Persona 5, but it does not currently have an announcement.

The latest entry in the Persona role-playing game series shipped for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 in Japan on September 15. The game shipped in North America on April 4 after a delay. Atlus has sold 1.8 million copies of the game worldwide as of August 4. The game features animation sequences from the Production I.Gstudio.

The Persona 5 the Animation -The Day Breakers- television anime special by A-1 Pictures aired on September 3. The special recounts the prologue story of the young thief organization at the center of the game. Crunchyroll streamed the television special, and Aniplex of America released it on an import Blu-ray Disc of the Collector's Edition on February 14.

The game is inspiring a television anime series by A-1 Pictures in 2018. The game is also getting a Persona 5 Dancing Star Night rhythm game for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in spring 2018.​