Well this is surprising, I thought that they would be removed forever from the service and just be in the WiiU only.
They were added for WiiU and 3DS/2DS but not on Wii in North America (I checked last Thursday). My guess is that it was a dumb assumption due to the release on the current systems.
This article is about Europe. They've indeed been restored to the Wii Virtual Console service, a move that presumably will also happen over here when they're released for the Wii U.
Well from what I read, the code can be copyrighted. Nintendo still owns the characters though. I'm not sure what their deal was with Rare back in the day
Current games: Everything on Switch
Switch Friend Code: SW-5075-7879-0008 | My Nintendo: LzWinky | Nintendo Network ID: LzWinky
The code is of course copyrighted, just as any other game would be. And the copyright is credited to Nintendo in the title sequence of all three, not to mention everywhere else like on the boxes.
Why they were removed and any rights Rare may or may not have is unconfirmed, but that Nintendo owns the games themselves is un-debatable thanks to the legal notices. Even if it wasn't, it's difficult to imagine that Nintendo wasn't looking forward back then with their contracts and this has all the appearances of Rare being hired to do a job for Nintendo, rather than Rare projects that Nintendo merely licensed for publication. So obviously, Nintendo would own the result just as you would own your home if you pay a contractor to construct it for you.
Plus, in the unlikely event that Rare did own something of significance, when Nintendo sold their stock to Microsoft, it seems all but certain they'd of arranged for any residual rights there to be transferred as part of the deal.
I can't help but wonder if it's as simple as the Rareware logo in the title sequence. The copyright notices on the Game Boy Advance boxes all show, as always, Nintendo as the owner of the copyrights for the games themselves. But they also go out of their way to credit Rare with the trademark for their logo.
Nintendo would need permission to use that logo these days, explaining their disappearance when the previous license ended that gave them permission to utilize their trademark and their reappearance now that they want to make them available on the Wii U after likely renegotiating a new license.
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Topic: Apparently the Donkey Kong Country trilogy is back this Thursday on Wii
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