Preserving Gaming History: The Role of Wii NAND and the Internet Archive
However, the practice is fraught with legal and ethical complexities. The Internet Archive operates in a nebulous space, relying on exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) for software preservation. Dumping one’s own NAND is legal for backup purposes in many jurisdictions, but uploading it to a public repository treads on thin ice. Nintendo, notoriously litigious, views any distribution of copyrighted system software (the IOS, the System Menu code) as piracy, even if the user data is scrubbed. Furthermore, a NAND dump contains console-unique cryptographic keys. In the wrong hands, these could theoretically be used to impersonate a legitimate console on Nintendo’s (now defunct) online services or to sign malicious code. Preservationists at the Archive have had to walk a fine line, often hosting only “clean” or development NANDs that lack personal keys, or keeping complete dumps behind academic access protocols. wii nand internet archive
: A high-quality archive of the system menu and channel audio, including the Mii Channel and Wii Shop Channel themes. Preserving Gaming History: The Role of Wii NAND
For Wii owners, a NAND backup is the ultimate "undo" button. Because the Wii has no built-in failsafe for corrupted system files or bad themes, a corrupted NAND can "brick" (permanently disable) the console. : Users typically use to create a (the data) and (the encryption keys) file on an SD card. Uniqueness : A standard NAND dump is keyed to a specific console Preservationists at the Archive have had to walk
aim to catalog and archive the thousands of games released for the system across all regions. Technical Challenges & "The Bricking Problem"