It’s a franchise whose latest installment was released in 2015, and it wasn’t exactly mainstream at the time…

Heaven Studio is a fan software that allows users to create their own remixes that can be customized with Rhythm Heaven games released on Nintendo platforms. You upload your own songs, select some of Rhythm Heaven’s mini-games, put them together, and players can control what happens in the remixes to the beat of the music.

The problem is that the mini-games use sprites and sound effects from Rhythm Heaven games, so Nintendo filed a DMCA claim with GitHub to have Heaven Studio’s infringing sound effects and sprites removed, but GitHub also removed the entire program and its 290 forks. This was reported by TorrentFreak.

Then Heaven Studio showed up on itch.io, but was eventually deleted there as well, with the error message “This tool’s files have been suspended for copyright (or trademark) claim”. Heaven Studio has been the target of several bogus DMCA claims in the past (some of them impersonating Nintendo), but now it seems credible, though a Plan B is in the works. The developers announced this on Twitter: “Recently the Heaven Studio GitHub (and all forks) were taken down due to a DMCA claim. Unfortunately, after looking into it, it seems to be real. But this is not the end! We’re working on a Plan B to shift the focus away from infringing assets. More details will be forthcoming.

Recently, Nintendo has been taking more and more action against fan projects that use their assets (sprites, music, sound effects…). In May, the studio behind Garry’s Mod announced that they would be removing twenty years of Nintendo content, because even then, the big N might have been the one making the DMCA claims.

Rhythm Heaven games have been released for GBA, DS, Wii and 3DS. A remix example is embedded.

Source: VGC, TorrentFreak, Itch.io