The game is releases on japan and people can buy it but it is against the law to pat pics of it?? What the he'll??

Haha, that's silly.

Sounds ridiculous to me, but I guess Nintendo has a point. The game has only been released in Japan as of now and they certainly have the right to try and keep things, more or less, under wraps. The big question is why? It's not impossible for hardcore pokemon fans to get the game, regardless of region, and existence of the game isn't some big secret. It is after all, out.
 
The only reasonable explanations is that there is some sort of disease that resides in images of the game, a pokeflu if you will. It will probably take months before they can isolate the gene that citizens of japan apparently have and find a cure, otherwise the consequences could be dire

Stupid, bullyish, unheard of, idiotic...  what else...
 
Nintendo relies on their lawyers too much.

Yeah, screenshots cause soooo much harm. I know that whenever I see a screenshot, I'm getting the full experience and no longer have any reason to purchase the game.
 
Serious, fucking screenshots?

Lmao. 
Pokemon is serious business.

that's ridiculous, and i hope it backfires in nintendo's face. the game is already released, there should be no reason to have to information treated as infringed.

Serebii has been around for fucking ever, if this were taken any further the first question asked of Nintendo would be "Why didn't you do this years ago?". Seems like intimidation more than anything.

Hasn't Nintendo been doing this a lately? 

It somewhat kind of not really makes sense for Pokebeach, who apparently admitted to using a rom to gather their info. It's tougher to understand about Serebii. I'd have to be less ignorant of the convoluted legal system to understand how posting images and information covering their game could be legally threatened. It seems like that falls under fair use terms. Even if they have legal standing, it then falls on simple stupidity. I watch coverage of the games on Serebii and it only increases my interest in buying the games, and I own every single game... 
 
Yeah, it's the "why now?" that makes that even less understandable. I've been visiting Serebii since before the Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire years, and they've never had a problem.

More fun times from family friendly Nintendo!

Bulbapedia still has everything up. 
 
I think nintendo will take back these letters. The massive backlash this is causing can't be good for the companies image. Besides, all these websites have to do is point out that the lawyers could be facing perjury charges if the DMCA submission is incorrect. Once you point that out, the people who file the DMCA usually pussy out. Because once someone is faced with jail time, they actually take time to reconsider what they've done.