In response to serving a Persona 5 emulator with a DMCA takedown request, Atlus USA says, “it isn’t the emulator itself we object to, it is the use of Persona 5… that we took issue with.” The emulation of Persona 5 uses the open source PS3 emulator RPCS3 and a member of that team revealed the takedown request on reddit. It shows that Atlus sent the notice directly to Patreon, asking that the entire funding page for the emulator be taken down.

According to the takedown notice, Atlus feels that this Persona 5 emulator is infringing on their intellectual property stating:

“The PS3 emulator itself is not infringing on our copyrights and trademarks; however, no version of the P5 game should be playable on this platform; and [the RPCS3] developers are infringing on our IP by making such games playable.”

Apparently Patreon told Atlus that removing the entire page was unreasonable, since the page itself does not break any rules and that they believe the Persona 5 emulator isn’t infringing either. Atlus responded to the refusal by explaining why the company felt that both things should be removed stating, “to make Persona 5 work on the emulator, the user has to circumvent our DRM protections.” Atlus then gave them a link to the Patreon account, which showed how to dump the game’s software from the disc or PSN download, but it has since been removed.

RPCS3 was very confused by the actions of Atlus and stated they weren’t doing anything illegal. They also found it strange that the notice was only directed at their Patreon and not their actual website. In the end, after discussing it with Patreon, RPCS3 has decided to move forward cautiously and remove any mention of Persona 5 from their page.

“We find it very interesting that Atlus would immediately try to shut down the Patreon page without any prior communication. Their primary reason given being: ‘no version of the P5 game should be playable on this platform [PC]’ is quite peculiar indeed. Why Atlus would choose this time to target this project will probably never be known. We choose not to speculate about the reasons at this time and hope for there to be open communication with Atlus. We firmly believe we operate within a legal framework and will continue to work on RPCS3, undeterred.”

Atlus has since given a statement to fans concerning the situation, stating 2 reasons they took issue with this Persona 5 emulator.

1. “We believe that our fans best experience our titles (like Persona 5) on the actual platforms for which they are developed. We don’t want their first experiences to be framerate drops, or crashes, or other issues that can crop up in emulation that we have not personally overseen. We understand that many Persona fans would love to see a PC version. And while we don’t have anything to announce today, we are listening! For now, the best way to experience Persona 5 is on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3.”

2. “We appreciate the awareness generated by the emulation community for Persona 5 and know that it is a fantastic example of how much people are loving our game. We want to keep bringing you titles like Persona 5. 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.”

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