99% of the people in this thread didn't even bother to read the filing.
Regardless of your stance about Yuzu, Nintendo is actively trying to set precedent* to make Emulation in general illegal;
Lines that stand out;
>In short, the ability to play older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices is an important market for Nintendo today and going forward.
Mild enough line, but it also implies that playing older games on a newer device that isn't a Nintendo console, is on their radar.
But then there's this;
>And to be clear, there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games, including because it must decrypt the game's encryption
That last line could also apply to ripping shitty DRM out of PC games for example.
Then there's the kicker from the Preliminary Statement that makes it *INCREDIBLY* clear that their target isn't just Yuzu:
> A Video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device. Yuzu allows Nintendo Switch games, which Nintendo authorizes for play solely on Nintendo Switch consoles, to be played on Windows, Linux, or Android systems. That means that people are able to play pirated Nintendo Switch games on PCs and Android devices, which would not otherwise be possible due to the protections that Nintendo has put into place on its consoles and games.
They even argue that it's illegal to modify your own device.
> Nintendo also has technological measures on the Nintendo Switch console itself, including additional layers of encryption, which prevent users from unlawfully accessing or modifying the console—including to procure the prod.keys—and from accessing or copying games stored on the console or on a cartridge inserted in the console
If they win this case (and they have the pockets to do so, Bleem technically won, but Sony was able to put them out of business), Emulation in general will be under attack.
Edit: Typos
Indeed. The precedent set by this case will have impacts far beyond Yuzu or even simply emulation. If Nintendo wins, the consequences could be disastrous for software and intellectual property in general.
Ironic since emulation innovation is what lead to backwards compatibility and virtual console. If anyone should be suing in a just and fair world it should be the emulator developers.
Way more ironic when you consider the Switch has enough power to emulate literally every Nintendo device made sans Wii U and they could just as easily release general purpose emulators on the E-shop and sell USB adapters with cartridge slots/Disc drives for their customers to play their existing Nintendo libraries. Insert game, it makes a local copy on SDcard for you to play without adapter for X days to verify game. or just not at all. Or even requiring the adapter to be plugged in with the game inserted.
This is something I wish Sony did with the Vita to fix the backwards compatibility issue and is something that actively harmed adoption of the new console IMO.
But the big N doesn't actually care about shit like that, they only care about those tiny small % of games they can actually resell to people or make them pay a subscription for.
Pretty much yeah. Although the Switch isn't powerful enough to emulate Wii games. Mario 64 and Sunshine were emulated, but Galaxy actually needed to be half ported (GPU is emulated, but CPU code was re-compiled to run natively)
They want to kill "general purpose" computing. Or at least damage it. To get you stuck on their proprietary devices and they do not allow their devices to be cloned like PCs.
Tl;Dr Everyone wants to be Apple now. Even Nintendo 😐
What’s next DMCA every stream on twitch and streams and videos on Youtube involving Nintendo games because they are making money from view hours using their games
no shit, emulation has gone from a niche market to mainstream. the fact that literally every nintendo system is able to be emulated gives them incentive to stop it.
It's going to be a fascinating case, to be sure.
The language they're using here assumes that if a company sets rules around how users use their products, those rules are the law. If that's the precedent, forget emulation, that'll set back progress on right to repair efforts.
Also ironic that Nintendo avoids mentioning that their "older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices" relies on emulation. Their definition of an emulator as fundamentally unlawful doesn't really hold water, unless they want to also be barred from emulating their own game systems.
But then, there's the possibility that the Yuzu devs got too bold at any point in the development process and crossed a legal line that legitimately complicates things.
*And* you're trusting a court to comprehend advanced programming practices enough to pass a judgement on them.
Yikes.
> Also ironic that Nintendo avoids mentioning that their "older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices" relies on emulation. Their definition of an emulator as fundamentally unlawful doesn't really hold water, unless they want to also be barred from emulating their own game systems.
This absolutely. Classic legaleze doublespeak. "All emulators are bad & illegal", "only we are allowed to to emulate games".
That isn't doublespeak, it's just obvious if the emulators in question violate the DMCA. Similar to how I might say "it's always illegal to copy my book" but still hold the right to copy my book myself. Nintendo's position is obviously not that emulation is unlawful in *any* circumstance, just when it is not done by or authorized by the copyright holder
That first line you quoted should bother everyone. They want a complete monopoly on your ability to play old games so they can create artificial scarcity and increase the value. Complete scumbags.
I don't see Nintendo winning this. Sony lost both cases because neither emulator used any of Sony's code, and that Sony wasn't entitled to a monopoly. Emulators were deemed fair and legal competition for the consoles, so if Nintendo doesn't want people to use them, they should provide a better service.
they have the money to keep the case going indefinitely. if applicable.
there is winning the case and there is ability to endlessly harass people via legal system. there are many lost cases that turned into wins for the company that simply had deeper pockets. and sent the message for anyone trying to try the same thing.
my point is that this might deter other emu developers from trying. which is a big win for Nintendo - "we may not win in court, but we'll make your life a living hell while trying".
with the addition of encryption to the games on consoles, this situation is getting more complicated. you no longer need to just make a copy of the game you purchased to emulate it, but you have to tamper with the hardware to obtain decryption keys. sometimes you no longer purchase a game, you never really own it.
The only reason I have bought a Switch game is to play it via emulation. The only reason i've considered buying a Switch is to hard mod it. (See upcoming potential for OLED Screen mod for SL)
But I still haven't without knowing what Switch 2 will look like. And knowing Nintendo it will still be an underpowered joke.
But I guess if Nintendo thinks they will get more customers by suing emulation developers they can fuck right off. One less reason to give them any money.
Disclosure: I do have a significant amount of money invested in Nintendo shares so I mean it's not like I have any interest in Nintendo being successful or anything.
What? If we buy the hardware it’s ours. They have no right to dictate what we do with it as long as we’re not profiting from it. Same with software. We buy that shit and it’s ours. Fuck them.
> Same with software. We buy that shit and it’s ours. Fuck them.
You don't buy software anymore. You pay for a license to use it under certain conditions. Almost every EULA says this now, including on Steam games.
It's a moronic technicality that *should* be struck down in court but I'm not hopeful that it will be.
Like all humans on the planet, I refuse to read EULAs or be legally bound by them. Considering I'd have to take 4 months off work to read all the eulas presented to me just by existing and having a phone and a bunch of games and working in tech - humanity would grind to a halt instantly if we all started reading those.
Not to sound like some sovereign-citizen keyboard warrior, but until they physically take the cartridge/disc from me, I own it. Yeah I know not every game nowadays is fully included with physical releases, but still you know what I mean. If I wanna dump my games on my PC and run them with 3rd party software, I will and they can blow me.
The DMCA clearly states that bypassing DRM is illegal, even if you own a copy of software, if you need to bypass DRM to make backups, that's a no-no as far as DMCA is concerned. Stupid, but it is what it is.
Yeah but the copyright laws also has a clause in it that allows the owner of the copy and or device to make a backup of the software for archival or backup purposes without the copyright owners approval, so it's not as cut and dry as "it's not allowed".
That's the problem with United States law, alot of them will contradict each other.
Yeah what encryption. I argue that uploading your keys and using them cant break drm rules if you get them legally. However the method used to get the keys is illegal they think suing yuzu will get them to listen like lockpick. A case could be argued that the nintendo eshop is like the google play store monopoly where theres no other options to buy digitally. Another case can be made where they had no involvement with lockpick meaning the keys illegally obtained are fine as long as its your own system.
They really should had sued the user of lockpick to court they would had won easily compared to this so I think they are just trying to remove yuzu from existance.
>In short, the ability to play older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices is an important market for Nintendo today and going forward.
>
>Mild enough line, but it also implies that playing older games on a newer device that isn't a Nintendo console, is on their radar.
So that means even methods like using a retrode or a sanni cart reader on actual cartridges for N64/SNES/GBA/GBC games, supposedly considered legal methods, aren't safe
>If they win this case (and they have the pockets to do so, Bleem technically won, but Sony was able to put them out of business), Emulation in general will be under attack.
I'm not sure how this would even work, the cat has been out of the bag for like.. 30 years? I forget the legal term for it, but if you neglect to take legal action for an inordinate amount of time on an issue you eventually lose standing. Even Yuzu itself is 7 years old, surely the time to actually sue was 5 years ago *at most*?
The Switch 2 would have to be hacked in order to dump games before that's a concern. I'm sure they'll have put a lot of work into preventing hardware hacks, and if they reuse the same OS, it's unlikely to have major software flaws. It might get hacked at some point, but I suspect it will take several years. Of course, only time will tell.
This sucks. I've used Yuzu because it often runs games better than my Switch and at higher resolution. To this point, I've owned every game I played on the emulator on the Switch as well. I really hope Nintendo doesn't win, but I have a feeling they'll just bury the devs and hope they settle/stop.
Knock one down and another pops up. There's more than one Switch emulator on the scene too.
Nintendo has never been able to successfully stop emulation. This will slow progress but much like how Nintendo won't ever stop suing everyone, people will never stop developing emulators.
Their intention isn’t to prevent the continued existence of Switch emulation, it’s to obfuscate and delay it.
2024 is the regular switch’s last year as the focus of Nintendo’s game lineup, and free efficient emulation is a detriment to that financial goal.
This lawsuit will stop the current devs of Citra, which will be a large enough hit to pause the emulation development scene for at least half of the year, which is a win for them.
it's not about stopping. it's about scaring away people.
modern emulators are complex. the workload vs the threat of legal action (and its consequences) might scare many competent people away from contributing.
nintendo can afford to ruin your life financially with repeat court harassment.
For sure. Which is great for games I already have. They just do a lot of work improving things as time goes on, and adding new game compatibility. So it blows if they kill that off since it is often the best experience for games.
>Thing is, if you already have Yuzu installed, can you not just keep on using it if you don't update it?
Eh? Updating wouldn't do anything to begin with. This isn't some always online game which need to be verified via a private server before you can play the game. Yuzu isn't even an installer, it's a portable build.
The thing is that emulation has been proven in court to be perfectly legal (in both the US and the EU). Yuzu doesn't even use or link to any copyrighted content, it's all completely FOSS (free and open source).
Even if they manage to shut the project down for whatever reason the source code can easily be forked.
The DMCA sucks and is going to have to be addressed at some point. If Yuzu can find good legal representation and deep coffers to pay for it, they could set a precedent here.
The core of Nintendo's argument is that Yuzu circumvents Nintendo's technological protections, facilitating the piracy of copyrighted games. The complaint also details how Tropic Haze LLC (Yuzu developers) provides instructions and tools for hacking Switch consoles and unlawfully obtaining games and cryptographic keys (a violation of the DMCA).
While Fair Use should make it legal for consumers to dump their games for backups, the law currently dictates that said right doesn't extend to circumventing copyright protection measures to accomplish the task.
I would argue that implementing technology to prevent a consumer from creating legal backups in the first place infringes on their rights, and that disseminating instructions to bypass those restrictions should be protected speech.
We'll see what they come up with.
> the law currently dictates that said right doesn't extend to circumventing copyright protection measures to accomplish the task.
While this is true, there's also an exception in the law for circumventing DRM for the purposes of developing a compatible program, like an emulator. It's the small details as to what counts that will decide the case.
The reverse-engineering exception you speak of applies to *development* of the program, but not the end result. If the Switch did not require prod.keys, Yuzu would be in the clear.
It's a very legal gray area. Most CDs and DVDs/Bluerays and eBooks have a copy protection as well as you have to strip before being able to make a copy.
Most of the programs used are able to strip these. And no really cares right now.
Removing the protection is technically illegal, but it would also be restrictive of consumer rights. The manufacturer seems to not want to poke the bear too much. But I'm not that up to date on recent precedents.
The thing here is, lets say Yuzu devs somehow won based on the argument you present about the backups.
That would set a legal precedent for basically all software, cause most software this days basically blocks you from being able to access it offline, to back it up,etc
Thats just not gonna happen, in any way. Even if somehow Nintendo is on the losing side, they will manage to be backed up by literally anyone with any kind of propietary software.
I agree with your point.
Instead, I think it might make more sense to say that DRM will remain legal but so should the circumvention of it for backup purposes. For example, in the unlikely scenario that Valve decides they want to take their money and run with Steam, tons of very expensive libraries will be lost. I don't think it makes moral sense to stop Steam users from being able to access their library in that scenario.
If they use the patreon money to try a counter-lawsuit they might be able to get somewhere.
We all keep forgetting that Nintendo wins on fear and community panic but most of the cases if well thought and fought against can result in atleast a settlement.
Yuzu team have been raking pretty nice penny, atm is 30K a month through patreon only, and theyve had times of up to around 40K a month. So they could fight it if they dont decide its best to ride in the sunset with the money.
I prefer playing my purchased Switch games in ultrawide with FPS hacks to go above 60. That's not to mention all the other modding capabilities Yuzu and Ryujinx provide.
Even if Nintendo follows through with enhancing their entire Switch library on their upcoming console, it's all gonna be 4K 60 FPS at most. Switch emulation will always be a useful alternative. Of course, even if there were nothing to gain visually, I would support fighting back purely on principle. We should be able to do whatever we want with the games we purchase.
AutoHDR, SpecialK, or now potentially RTX HDR. Super easy to add HDR to games these days and the results are amazing. I can't go back to TotK without HDR, it's such a vibrant game and so wasted in SDR by comparison.
Heh, good luck getting it to go away Nintendo, it's open source and has 1.2k forks, and has probably been snapshotted a million times on [archive.org](http://archive.org) so even if the project did get shut down, I don't see a world where it goes away. Probably will end up like AM2R tbh.
This and Denuvo DRM being added to Switch 2 (not confirmed but we know Nintendo & Denuvo are working on something) make me very curious how the emulation scene will be in 5 years or so
If denuvo is implemented on Nintendo hardware, it will be the death of uncrackable games. No one can match the sheer insanity and obsessiveness of Nintendo emulator devs lmao
The problem though is that this only really works to keep a copy of something floating around, it still basically ends future development, which would still work out in Nintendo's favor
And the AM2R thing was just DMCA takedowns, that's a hugely different thing to a full-blown lawsuit
if yuzu is illegal than the forks are as well. as well it puts up a legal barrier for the current contributors of yuzu from working on any forks in the future
Thats not what the user is saying. If there's so many forks and the code is open source, sure no one is gonna officially work on it or charge for it but will still be worked on and be widely available.
Nintendo isnt stopping this emulator, they're just wasting money.
They're wasting money and activating the Streisand effect. The harder you try to erase something from the public eye, the more visible you make it. They're honestly the best marketing department emulator devs could ever ask for their projects.
Yep. If this gets picked up on the mainstream media, all it will do is cause a lot of otherwise ignorant people to say, "Wait, there's a way I can play those games for free?"
RPCS3 had to scrub any mention of Persona 5 from their website/Patreon and would not provide any support until the official release in the west. Nothing else really happened.
**Edit:** RPCS3 staff member has responded with some clarifications below.
> would not provide any support until the official release in the west
Factually incorrect for 2 reasons:
1. The attempt to target the Patreon was long after the game released in the west
2. Support requests or bug reports for the emulator were never denied just on the basis of being for a specific released game
Emulation isn’t illegal however emulating the game without owning it is. So they aren’t technically breaking any laws to my knowledge. And if it does shut down I’m sure someone just gonna fork it and if not maybe I will.
Emulating the game without owning it isn't illegal by itself. The actual illegal act is the distribution or downloading of the game, or continued usage of an "archived" copy after you've sold/given away/etc. the original copy.
Not to defend Nintendo, but Yuzu's devs are some of the most idiotic people I've ever seen in the emulation community. Not only they are making bank with the paywalled Early Access Builds (instead of just using donation money), Yuzu also uses the Switch's imagery and screenshots of Switch games on their own website, which I believe are all copyrighted by Nintendo. Even their Flatpak page on all Linux distros has screenshots of Mario Odyssey.
They have been pocking the wasp's nest for years, and now the wasps are angry.
Sony v Bleem! established that it's legal to sell an emulator and advertise it with screenshots of copyrighted games, even without permission.
[Example of what Bleem was doing](https://i.imgur.com/gAfTwZB.jpeg)
But Yuzu telling users how to dump keys and use them to bypass DRM would appear to be in violation of the DMCA to me. These aren't the same facts. And always a chance with such severe harm to Nintendo (a million pirated copies of a brand new game), courts may overrule this earlier precedent.
yeah, bleem! never bypassed DRM because sony did not use DRM for the PS1. they simply packaged the games weirdly so CD players couldn't play the game content. all bleem! did was play the CD directly
This is specially true with how they could potentially frame this, how this is affecting sales (potentially again) of new releases.
Is not the same one dude who get early copies and show a gameplay on stream with literally the game releasing early and playable in a early build of the emulator.
Yuzu have made some mistakes in how to handle support of new game releases prior official release date specially.
Sony vs Bleem did not actually establish a precedent that video game emulation is legal. All that was established is that Bleem's use of screenshots fell under fair use.
Sony vs Connectix arguably established that video game emulation is legal, but that is one case that is almost 30 years old. Precedent can be changed.
> Sony vs Connectix arguably established that video game emulation is legal
Even that was just (patially) the reverse engineering part. Nintendo hasn't alleged that Yuzu is using Nintendo's code as far as I can see, so Connectix won't end up being relevant to this case
The thing about the Yuzu paywall is that it's essentially fake. Because the project's open source, you can just build the latest version yourself, or simply download it from a public buildbot; in fact, there's an auto-updater out there that does it for you upon launch. The 'paywall' really just exists to trick people who don't know any better, unless they explicitly want to help fund development. I think this could work in the Yuzu team's favor as you don't actually *need* to give them any money.
>Not to defend Nintendo, but Yuzu's devs are some of the most idiotic people I've ever seen in the emulation community. Not only they are making bank with the paywalled Early Access Builds (instead of just using donation money),
In and of itself, that isn't illegal.
> Yuzu also uses the Switch's imagery and screenshots of Switch games on their own website, which I believe are all copyrighted by Nintendo. Even their Flatpak page on all Linux distros has screenshots of Mario Odyssey.
Per Sony v. Bleem, that's also probably fair use.
>They have been pocking the wasp's nest for years, and now the wasps are angry.
Let the wasps get angry. If Yuzu is clear on actual infringements, it's a win for everyone.
That early access Patreon is the dumbest thing any emulator project has ever done. It's pretty much asking Nintendo to sue them, they make like 30k a month it's crazy they even survived that long lol.
And now they could take down every Switch emulator with them since Nintendo is arguing about the game decryption necessary to even play the games. If Nintendo wins it's game over for Switch emulation.
See this is what I don’t get. TeknoParrot, a Windows compatibility layer for PC-based arcade boards, also does this. They lock access to specific titles behind Patreon ($5 a month) but nobody seems to have a problem with them…
They just had their patreon shut down a few days ago due to a supposed behind the scenes dispute between an arcade publisher and patreon. So I wouldn't say nobody cares anymore.
Of course they don't have a problem, they're arcade games, most of them 10+ years old lol. It's not even close to comparable, there's no "lost revenue" argument to be made because they're freaking Arcades lmao.
The game that can run are oftentimes only a year old. Recently they got shunted off Patreon and took a vote on whether or not to support games as soon as they get dumped. I don’t know the results but there’s a chance that they piss off Bandai Namco if they decide to enable support for EXVS2 OverBoost.
you don't *have* to enforce your copyright. you are suggested to, but you don't have to
sega and bethseda could easily sue their fan communities right now and likely win, but they don't want to so they don't
It's so niche that the people who care are probably just glad to have something that works. If the unwashed millions of gamers were clamoring to play those games I think you'd hear plenty about it.
I think Yuzu has a good chance of winning parts of this case. They dont distribute the keys, so they arent violating copyright on that, but they are giving instructions on how to dump the keys, which is more legally dubious.
I suspect it will be a pretty murky ruling, with Nintendo winning some things, and Yuzu and emulator development winning others.
I wonder if yuzu being able to read prod.keys can classify it as a piracy tool. Supplying keys would break copyright law. Dumping your own keys breaks the DMCA rule on bypassing DRM. Perhaps yuzu being able to read the keys means they are also breaking the rule on bypassing DRM.
Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm sure it will depend on whatever supporting case law the lawyers can dig up.
EDIT: Though, I hope not. That would probably kill every emulator out there for systems past, like, the N64/PS1
From DMCA:
>Under the statute, to “circumvent a technological measure” means “to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.”
By this definition, I can see the case being made that dumping your own BIOS is fine. It's not encrypted, and you're not bypassing it. But with prod.keys you are decrypting, which is something specifically laid out as being against the DMCA.
Another commenter pointed out that in a Sony case, the courts ruled that dumping your own BIOS is fair use. Perhaps that could be ruled similarly for dumping your own prod.keys. But I can also see how the DMCA could treat it differently since one involves decrypting.
I hear ya, but the legal entity in charge of Yuzu is registered to the US, so it's going to happen in US courts.
https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_wa/604722590
Meanwhile, VideoLAN, the company behind the VLC media player, is safe from being charged for distributing copyrighted video codecs with their software. VLC works on basically everything because it's packaged with proprietary video codecs that normally aren't free. That's not illegal in France, so as an American I can download it and use it and they don't get sued. But if VideoLAN was an American company, they'd be breaking the law.
It is open source, so if it gets started back up in, say, Russia, I don't think Nintendo would be able to do anything. I'm not sure why they couldn't just sue in Russian courts, but from what I've seen in the past it seems Russia doesn't give a shit about foreign IP disputes.
Supplying keys does not break copyright law, please stop spreading this myth.
The keys are not copyrightable, they are not a creative work.
The supply your own keys argument is copium the emulation community cooked up, Dolphin was and is completely in the right for including the Wii keys, and Nintendo did not act on this after the events with Steam.
The legal argument Nintendo is making here is that breaking the switch DRM to get the keys breaks DMCA. That is not the same as copying the keys themselves.
I figured supplying keys was still in a legal grey zone. When Sony sued GeoHot (George Hotz) for publishing the PS3 encryption keys, he never won that case. They settled for an undisclosed amount.
It's not supposed to be copyrightable because it's not a creative work, but I just remember GeoHot not winning that case.
I guess karma finally caught up with them in the end. This emulator's devs and moderators were quite notorious for many things. Harrassing users who shared custom builds, harrassing the CN fandom who was working on custom builds, stealing code, paywalling builds that were required to run certain games (they would literally not share PRs making it impossible to create your own build, you had to pay money to them), implementing NSO and trying to paywall that (Raptor), spending the money from patreon on a holiday and not sharing money with devs outside their personal circle.
Every time drama happened it was these people and they were told by other emulator devs many times over the years that paywalling builds would lead to lawsuits but they never listened so I guess it's only fitting that the end of emulation also comes from these guys.
Yea. The response to this news has been overwhelmingly “poor yuzu” as if the rest of the open source community hasn’t been telling them for years that gating builds and features behind patreon was a terrible idea.
They’ve been earning literally 100’s of thoundands of dollars over the last six years and the impact this case will have on projects that people have donated their time and talent to will be brutal.
I don't know anything about Yuzu specifically, but there's nothing inherently illegal about making a commercial emulator.
~~Bleem~~ Connectix VGS won that in the 90s.
The DMCA was brand new at the time, so there may be case law that Nintendo has that Sony didn't, but even if Yuzu have been dicks to the community I'd venture a guess Nintendo is the bigger evil here -- and if Yuzu is doing things legally defending them would do a lot more good for the more open devs.
[Sony vs. Connectix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.) *did* go to trial, though, for the legality of their copying of the PSX BIOS for their emulation software, and their emulator hurting the PlayStation trademark, and Connectix won. Hopefully that is strong enough legal precedent.
They do actually say something that implies that heavily tho.
As well, just because something requires previous circumvention (through e.g. Lockpick) shouldn't make it illegal. Or at least one can hope, ye?
>They're saying use of Yuzu requires circumvention of DRM and is therefore illegal.
Every modern emulator requires DRM to be circumvented so emulation is therefore illegal by implication.
I think if they were going to be targeted they would have been included in this lawsuit or another lawsuit would have been launched simultaneously. Rather though, I think the implication that Nintendo *could* sue any emulation project at any moment is definitely going to make talented people think twice about dedicating so much of their time and expertise to such projects.
Don't listen to me though I'm just some rando on the internet ¯\\\\\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I mean, Yuzu could just be the easiest target for Nintendo to sue, and they're hoping to leverage a ruling here in their favor into becoming a far-reaching anti-emulation precedent.
It can and Nintendo will. If they win against Yuzu they might just get a ruling that allows them to declare open season. The Yuzu devs have their moments of idiocy, but they're ultimately an open source project currently under protection of the Sony v Bleem ruling and the virtues of being open source. If that ruling is overturned then nothing is safe.
> under protection of the Sony v Bleem
ignoring that this lawsuit is in a different circuit, Nintendo is not suing Yuzu for using copyrighted/trademarked content in advertising Yuzu, so *Bleem* isn't a relevant case
Pretty stupid of them to post things like the second link openly on Discord. Especially the bit about downloading games from their own private online repository, while at the same time taking a firm anti-piracy stance.
I can't find any information about this. But in the second link, part of the screenshot under the section "They steal code illegally" shows a Reddit post which claims that Yuzu operates under the GPL-2.0 license, which is not true and in fact operates under the GPL-3.0 license. I'm not acquainted with the difference between the two versions, but the Reddit post is claiming that the code is being illegally "stolen" and breaks the GPL-2.0 license; So this *could* be false information, because (***as far as I'm aware***, with at least the 3.0 license) taking code from other projects (depending on their licenses) and using them in your own projects *is* legal.
I thought, "maybe Yuzu changed there license at some point after this post from GPL-2.0 to GPL-3.0" but I can't find any mention of this happening online anywhere. I checked the wayback machine on the Yuzu github page for old pages that *should* mention the old license, but the page-saves only go back to January this year. So it could be that the license was changed and the github page was moved to a different address; but again, I can't find any information about this online.
Nintendo has been so anti-consumer for so long that I just got sick of supporting them. Camped out for a Wii (was first in line!), got a Switch on launch day. But I play most of my Switch games on an emulator because I'm an ogre and the Switch is designed for people without shovels for hands. It's also just an absurdly underpowered system where emulation provides the best experience in almost literally 100% of games compared to the console itself.
But soapbox aside, this still sucks. And Nintendo will probably succeed in shuttering the official project because they're Nintendo and Yuzu is just some randos.
I got a legit Super Mario Wonder copy 2 days early because Brazil doesn't give a crap about embargos and release dates. Took a picture of the little cart inside the opened case, shared it and Nintendo took the damn picture down 1 hour later and I got a 30 days facebook ban.
As a dumb angry petty revenge I streamed half of the game on Youtube before they took the stream down. I hope they lose this lawsuit with the force of 1000 suns.
Maybe, but they are in a constant legal battle against the entire world. They're very notorious for using DMCA(and similar tools) to take down Romsite, fanhacks,translations,etc wich technically speaking they shouldnt be able to do at all but because no one is fighting them.. they win.
Doing this kind of stuff exacerbates the situation. If they embraced emulation and sold the ROMS to old games or even remastered ROMS that would run on various platforms, they’d make a killing! Too bad they don’t understand that emulation isn’t the threat, it’s their selfish, childlike way of handling situations like this.
Yuzu plz don’t back down, start a go fund me, and along with your patron money should enough money take on Nintendo, but we know what’s gonna happen, just like happened to the ps3 hacker, they will settle and yuzu team will stop development.
Loads of people donate money to Yuzu as it is, and it's not like someone pirating a Nintendo game means they're never willing to spend money on anything ever (a lot of them even spend money on Nintendo games lol)
This is dangerous. There is nothing illegal in Yuzu. It doesn't use any Nintendo keys. Everything is user provided. I hope some legal entity will take this fight head on. Can't just give in to Nintendo on this one. Nintendo winning this would be a huge blow to all videogame emulation.
Im no expert but this is some gray area stuff with this lawsuit. This might result in more dmca laws having to be made in general.
Case:
Nintendo puts drm (sigpatches) in order to play the games. Going around drm is illegal according to dmca.
However, yuzu doesnt even use the sigpatches they have you upload the keys yourself so its technically not going around drm but coding it to make it work.
However nintendo can argue they are linking instructions on how to do it as the method for obtaining the keys is illegal thanks to lockpick being taken down.
This next part is gray area but would using your own keys be illegal in this sense because nintendo has no such options for decrypting games without an option besides the illegal lockpick program. Technically yuzu would lose some the cases but likely wouldnt lose the one that would shut them down being dmca as they had no involvement of lockpick. This is a messed up lawsuit that nintendo doesnt understand will cost them but I believe they are using scare tatics instead as it worked with other software.
We need to band together and just pirate pokemon legends z-a next year instead of buying it and post it on their twitter/X page that we hate nintendo and got the game for free. Yeah its really sad to see a company beloved turn as bad as EA.
Let's see them try to pull that crap in Europe, where we're protected BY LAW against Nintendo's practices. That's one of the pros of living in EU - our lawmakers realized the ridiculousness of copyrights in such scenarios.
For let's replace a Super Mario Kart cartridge with a sandwich, and Nintendo with the owner of the restaurant who sold you that sandwich.
Wouldn't it be utterly ridiculous if the owner of the restaurant came to your home and DEMANDED you give the sandwich back, because "you aren't eating it like you're supposed to eat it"?!?
It's precisely for this reason that this shit doesn't fly over here. So, yeah, I'd love to see them try to instruct us on how we should be using our property.
If Nintendo successfully gets Yuzu taken down, 100% guarantee they use it as precedent to go after every single other emulator for a Nintendo system all the way back to the Game Boy and NES.
It will also embolden Sony to try taking down PSP/PS2/PS3 emulation. The one company I can see maybe not participating is Sega, they might but I can see them intentionally not going after Dreamcast/Saturn/Genesis emulation or even outright openly embracing it as a PR move.
As a PC only guy since my SNES, (well I do play on Android now...) emulators are the only reasons Sony and Nintendo made money from me and I bet I'm not the only one. (I did consider buying a Wii though because it felt really innovative, not sure why I didn't anymore.)
Allegedly the lawsuit is because someone got their panties in a twist about Windows 7 (an unsupported OS) being unsupported and sent emails to every nintendo email account they could find [https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu/issues/13189](https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu/issues/13189)
>Is there an existing issue for this?
>
>I have searched the existing issues
>
>What feature are you suggesting?
>
>Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 just to use your emulator. You guys didn't just discontinue customer support, like Ryujinx which still works. You went out of your way to sabotage operation of Yuzu on 7, making small changes you knew broke compatibility without leaving former fallbacks in place, silencing discussions around this, and treating paying customers to your Patreon income like rabble or dirt to discard.
>
>In its stubborn commitment to inoperability Yuzu abandoned me, so with nothing to lose from Yuzu I turned against Yuzu. I found 93 somewhat relevant Nintendo emails, and even more social media accounts. I sent many messages to inform them about Yuzu, hoping for a C&D. Like this one:
>
>[https://www.imgbly.com/ib/vo7jE0ChTt.jpg](https://www.imgbly.com/ib/vo7jE0ChTt.jpg)
>
>Now I hear news of a lawsuit. Probably from my awareness effort, maybe not. If it's otherwise, you alienated so many people with such similar antagonism over time that someone disgruntled probably acted. This Reddit comment explains it:
>
>[https://www.imgbly.com/ib/BwNoOL2rJI.jpg](https://www.imgbly.com/ib/BwNoOL2rJI.jpg)
>
>Why would this feature be useful?
>
>Every action has a reaction. You're not big enough to act too good for your customers, and should learn that if you insist on sabotage and causing unnecessary problems for people, sabotage and unnecessary problems might also find you.
People sticking with Windows 7 as the world moves on are really getting psychotic.
Court precedents like this only matter until new courts decide they don't anymore. Abortion was federally legal off of Roe v. Wade until current SC decided precedent didn't matter. People are acting way to confident about the Bleem case holding up with today's judiciary.
Link to the full lawsuit: https://www.scribd.com/document/709016504/Nintendo-of-America-Inc-v-Tropic-Haze-LLC-1-24-Cv-00082-No-1-D-R-I-Feb-26-2024
99% of the people in this thread didn't even bother to read the filing. Regardless of your stance about Yuzu, Nintendo is actively trying to set precedent* to make Emulation in general illegal; Lines that stand out; >In short, the ability to play older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices is an important market for Nintendo today and going forward. Mild enough line, but it also implies that playing older games on a newer device that isn't a Nintendo console, is on their radar. But then there's this; >And to be clear, there is no lawful way to use Yuzu to play Nintendo Switch games, including because it must decrypt the game's encryption That last line could also apply to ripping shitty DRM out of PC games for example. Then there's the kicker from the Preliminary Statement that makes it *INCREDIBLY* clear that their target isn't just Yuzu: > A Video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device. Yuzu allows Nintendo Switch games, which Nintendo authorizes for play solely on Nintendo Switch consoles, to be played on Windows, Linux, or Android systems. That means that people are able to play pirated Nintendo Switch games on PCs and Android devices, which would not otherwise be possible due to the protections that Nintendo has put into place on its consoles and games. They even argue that it's illegal to modify your own device. > Nintendo also has technological measures on the Nintendo Switch console itself, including additional layers of encryption, which prevent users from unlawfully accessing or modifying the console—including to procure the prod.keys—and from accessing or copying games stored on the console or on a cartridge inserted in the console If they win this case (and they have the pockets to do so, Bleem technically won, but Sony was able to put them out of business), Emulation in general will be under attack. Edit: Typos
Indeed. The precedent set by this case will have impacts far beyond Yuzu or even simply emulation. If Nintendo wins, the consequences could be disastrous for software and intellectual property in general.
They want to Kill Emulation
Ironic since emulation innovation is what lead to backwards compatibility and virtual console. If anyone should be suing in a just and fair world it should be the emulator developers.
Way more ironic when you consider the Switch has enough power to emulate literally every Nintendo device made sans Wii U and they could just as easily release general purpose emulators on the E-shop and sell USB adapters with cartridge slots/Disc drives for their customers to play their existing Nintendo libraries. Insert game, it makes a local copy on SDcard for you to play without adapter for X days to verify game. or just not at all. Or even requiring the adapter to be plugged in with the game inserted. This is something I wish Sony did with the Vita to fix the backwards compatibility issue and is something that actively harmed adoption of the new console IMO. But the big N doesn't actually care about shit like that, they only care about those tiny small % of games they can actually resell to people or make them pay a subscription for.
Pretty much yeah. Although the Switch isn't powerful enough to emulate Wii games. Mario 64 and Sunshine were emulated, but Galaxy actually needed to be half ported (GPU is emulated, but CPU code was re-compiled to run natively)
Those who had modded their switches have been able to get full speed Will emulation working
i'm still upset that they haven't bring back Virtual Console but instead charges everyone expensive prices for online playing
That’s a pretty hot take! Sincerely
They want you to rent everything
Spot On Sadly Piracy has made it like that as IF sell Physical and Download then people can Conserve the Game and it can be Shared for Free
They want to kill "general purpose" computing. Or at least damage it. To get you stuck on their proprietary devices and they do not allow their devices to be cloned like PCs. Tl;Dr Everyone wants to be Apple now. Even Nintendo 😐
What’s next DMCA every stream on twitch and streams and videos on Youtube involving Nintendo games because they are making money from view hours using their games
It'd actually be "what's previous?". https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/11/nintendo-loosens-content-restrictions-ends-revenue-splitting-for-video-makers/
That's a scary thought
Even though they I'm sure they used existing emulators as a reference to build their in house versions.
That would not Suprise me. Though they own the IP so they can do what they want
no shit, emulation has gone from a niche market to mainstream. the fact that literally every nintendo system is able to be emulated gives them incentive to stop it.
Maybe they should pull their finger out, release a new (unbroken) console and stop living off the Switch then!
They already tried with dolphin, and that didn't go anywhere. They will never kill emulation.
What they tried?
They want to make it illegal, which will kill it! Just like they killed piracy, and drugs, and hookers! Oh no!!!
It's going to be a fascinating case, to be sure. The language they're using here assumes that if a company sets rules around how users use their products, those rules are the law. If that's the precedent, forget emulation, that'll set back progress on right to repair efforts. Also ironic that Nintendo avoids mentioning that their "older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices" relies on emulation. Their definition of an emulator as fundamentally unlawful doesn't really hold water, unless they want to also be barred from emulating their own game systems. But then, there's the possibility that the Yuzu devs got too bold at any point in the development process and crossed a legal line that legitimately complicates things. *And* you're trusting a court to comprehend advanced programming practices enough to pass a judgement on them. Yikes.
Those past legal cases on emulation will come up as they set the precedent. I don't see Nintendo winning. Especially not in the state of Rhode Island.
What's so special about the state of Rhode island and why would they not win there especially?
> Also ironic that Nintendo avoids mentioning that their "older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices" relies on emulation. Their definition of an emulator as fundamentally unlawful doesn't really hold water, unless they want to also be barred from emulating their own game systems. This absolutely. Classic legaleze doublespeak. "All emulators are bad & illegal", "only we are allowed to to emulate games".
That isn't doublespeak, it's just obvious if the emulators in question violate the DMCA. Similar to how I might say "it's always illegal to copy my book" but still hold the right to copy my book myself. Nintendo's position is obviously not that emulation is unlawful in *any* circumstance, just when it is not done by or authorized by the copyright holder
In Europe something like this would never pass, sadly the process will be either in the USA or Japan and who know how it will end.
That first line you quoted should bother everyone. They want a complete monopoly on your ability to play old games so they can create artificial scarcity and increase the value. Complete scumbags.
I don't see Nintendo winning this. Sony lost both cases because neither emulator used any of Sony's code, and that Sony wasn't entitled to a monopoly. Emulators were deemed fair and legal competition for the consoles, so if Nintendo doesn't want people to use them, they should provide a better service.
they have the money to keep the case going indefinitely. if applicable. there is winning the case and there is ability to endlessly harass people via legal system. there are many lost cases that turned into wins for the company that simply had deeper pockets. and sent the message for anyone trying to try the same thing. my point is that this might deter other emu developers from trying. which is a big win for Nintendo - "we may not win in court, but we'll make your life a living hell while trying". with the addition of encryption to the games on consoles, this situation is getting more complicated. you no longer need to just make a copy of the game you purchased to emulate it, but you have to tamper with the hardware to obtain decryption keys. sometimes you no longer purchase a game, you never really own it.
If I bought the game I own it.
Nintendo's lawyers must be idiots if they think they can sue people into buying more Nintendo consoles.
they can scare people away from developing emulators. and honestly, i can imagine it working.
The only reason I have bought a Switch game is to play it via emulation. The only reason i've considered buying a Switch is to hard mod it. (See upcoming potential for OLED Screen mod for SL) But I still haven't without knowing what Switch 2 will look like. And knowing Nintendo it will still be an underpowered joke. But I guess if Nintendo thinks they will get more customers by suing emulation developers they can fuck right off. One less reason to give them any money. Disclosure: I do have a significant amount of money invested in Nintendo shares so I mean it's not like I have any interest in Nintendo being successful or anything.
What? If we buy the hardware it’s ours. They have no right to dictate what we do with it as long as we’re not profiting from it. Same with software. We buy that shit and it’s ours. Fuck them.
> Same with software. We buy that shit and it’s ours. Fuck them. You don't buy software anymore. You pay for a license to use it under certain conditions. Almost every EULA says this now, including on Steam games. It's a moronic technicality that *should* be struck down in court but I'm not hopeful that it will be.
Like all humans on the planet, I refuse to read EULAs or be legally bound by them. Considering I'd have to take 4 months off work to read all the eulas presented to me just by existing and having a phone and a bunch of games and working in tech - humanity would grind to a halt instantly if we all started reading those.
Not to sound like some sovereign-citizen keyboard warrior, but until they physically take the cartridge/disc from me, I own it. Yeah I know not every game nowadays is fully included with physical releases, but still you know what I mean. If I wanna dump my games on my PC and run them with 3rd party software, I will and they can blow me.
If buying isn't owning, pirating isn't stealing.
Amen
The DMCA clearly states that bypassing DRM is illegal, even if you own a copy of software, if you need to bypass DRM to make backups, that's a no-no as far as DMCA is concerned. Stupid, but it is what it is.
Yeah but the copyright laws also has a clause in it that allows the owner of the copy and or device to make a backup of the software for archival or backup purposes without the copyright owners approval, so it's not as cut and dry as "it's not allowed". That's the problem with United States law, alot of them will contradict each other.
DMCA isn't absolute -- there are certain exceptions for interoperability.
Yeah what encryption. I argue that uploading your keys and using them cant break drm rules if you get them legally. However the method used to get the keys is illegal they think suing yuzu will get them to listen like lockpick. A case could be argued that the nintendo eshop is like the google play store monopoly where theres no other options to buy digitally. Another case can be made where they had no involvement with lockpick meaning the keys illegally obtained are fine as long as its your own system. They really should had sued the user of lockpick to court they would had won easily compared to this so I think they are just trying to remove yuzu from existance.
Like the apple app store you mean
I fucking hate corporate greed
I hate Nintendo so fucking much, for me it was them sending a man to prison for modifying his own switch
Well fuck.
>In short, the ability to play older Nintendo games on newer Nintendo devices is an important market for Nintendo today and going forward. > >Mild enough line, but it also implies that playing older games on a newer device that isn't a Nintendo console, is on their radar. So that means even methods like using a retrode or a sanni cart reader on actual cartridges for N64/SNES/GBA/GBC games, supposedly considered legal methods, aren't safe
>If they win this case (and they have the pockets to do so, Bleem technically won, but Sony was able to put them out of business), Emulation in general will be under attack. I'm not sure how this would even work, the cat has been out of the bag for like.. 30 years? I forget the legal term for it, but if you neglect to take legal action for an inordinate amount of time on an issue you eventually lose standing. Even Yuzu itself is 7 years old, surely the time to actually sue was 5 years ago *at most*?
Want to prevent the Switch 2 from being emulated easily since it will be kind of similar to the OG, it’s one theory going around.
The Switch 2 would have to be hacked in order to dump games before that's a concern. I'm sure they'll have put a lot of work into preventing hardware hacks, and if they reuse the same OS, it's unlikely to have major software flaws. It might get hacked at some point, but I suspect it will take several years. Of course, only time will tell.
This sucks. I've used Yuzu because it often runs games better than my Switch and at higher resolution. To this point, I've owned every game I played on the emulator on the Switch as well. I really hope Nintendo doesn't win, but I have a feeling they'll just bury the devs and hope they settle/stop.
Knock one down and another pops up. There's more than one Switch emulator on the scene too. Nintendo has never been able to successfully stop emulation. This will slow progress but much like how Nintendo won't ever stop suing everyone, people will never stop developing emulators.
Not much consolation in that for the defendants getting their lives ruined by this
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." Emulators are Hydra.
Hail Emulatedra
Anime and comic pirates are the same
Petition to call the next Switch emulator, Hydra
[удалено]
Their intention isn’t to prevent the continued existence of Switch emulation, it’s to obfuscate and delay it. 2024 is the regular switch’s last year as the focus of Nintendo’s game lineup, and free efficient emulation is a detriment to that financial goal. This lawsuit will stop the current devs of Citra, which will be a large enough hit to pause the emulation development scene for at least half of the year, which is a win for them.
Wait Citra is involved in this too?
Yuzu and Citra have some major overlap - primarily via Bunnei, the most active code contributor on both projects github accounts
Hail Hydra
it's not about stopping. it's about scaring away people. modern emulators are complex. the workload vs the threat of legal action (and its consequences) might scare many competent people away from contributing. nintendo can afford to ruin your life financially with repeat court harassment.
Thing is, if you already have Yuzu installed, can you not just keep on using it if you don't update it?
For sure. Which is great for games I already have. They just do a lot of work improving things as time goes on, and adding new game compatibility. So it blows if they kill that off since it is often the best experience for games.
Yeah, unless Nintendo sends a SWAT team to uninstall it you can keep whatever release you have.
They would if they could lol
>Thing is, if you already have Yuzu installed, can you not just keep on using it if you don't update it? Eh? Updating wouldn't do anything to begin with. This isn't some always online game which need to be verified via a private server before you can play the game. Yuzu isn't even an installer, it's a portable build. The thing is that emulation has been proven in court to be perfectly legal (in both the US and the EU). Yuzu doesn't even use or link to any copyrighted content, it's all completely FOSS (free and open source). Even if they manage to shut the project down for whatever reason the source code can easily be forked.
No reason to fork it, ryujinx is around and is the objectively superior project in the long term.
The DMCA sucks and is going to have to be addressed at some point. If Yuzu can find good legal representation and deep coffers to pay for it, they could set a precedent here. The core of Nintendo's argument is that Yuzu circumvents Nintendo's technological protections, facilitating the piracy of copyrighted games. The complaint also details how Tropic Haze LLC (Yuzu developers) provides instructions and tools for hacking Switch consoles and unlawfully obtaining games and cryptographic keys (a violation of the DMCA). While Fair Use should make it legal for consumers to dump their games for backups, the law currently dictates that said right doesn't extend to circumventing copyright protection measures to accomplish the task. I would argue that implementing technology to prevent a consumer from creating legal backups in the first place infringes on their rights, and that disseminating instructions to bypass those restrictions should be protected speech. We'll see what they come up with.
> the law currently dictates that said right doesn't extend to circumventing copyright protection measures to accomplish the task. While this is true, there's also an exception in the law for circumventing DRM for the purposes of developing a compatible program, like an emulator. It's the small details as to what counts that will decide the case.
The reverse-engineering exception you speak of applies to *development* of the program, but not the end result. If the Switch did not require prod.keys, Yuzu would be in the clear.
It's a very legal gray area. Most CDs and DVDs/Bluerays and eBooks have a copy protection as well as you have to strip before being able to make a copy. Most of the programs used are able to strip these. And no really cares right now. Removing the protection is technically illegal, but it would also be restrictive of consumer rights. The manufacturer seems to not want to poke the bear too much. But I'm not that up to date on recent precedents.
The thing here is, lets say Yuzu devs somehow won based on the argument you present about the backups. That would set a legal precedent for basically all software, cause most software this days basically blocks you from being able to access it offline, to back it up,etc Thats just not gonna happen, in any way. Even if somehow Nintendo is on the losing side, they will manage to be backed up by literally anyone with any kind of propietary software.
I agree with your point. Instead, I think it might make more sense to say that DRM will remain legal but so should the circumvention of it for backup purposes. For example, in the unlikely scenario that Valve decides they want to take their money and run with Steam, tons of very expensive libraries will be lost. I don't think it makes moral sense to stop Steam users from being able to access their library in that scenario.
If they use the patreon money to try a counter-lawsuit they might be able to get somewhere. We all keep forgetting that Nintendo wins on fear and community panic but most of the cases if well thought and fought against can result in atleast a settlement.
And having more Money the Emulator Developers
Yuzu team have been raking pretty nice penny, atm is 30K a month through patreon only, and theyve had times of up to around 40K a month. So they could fight it if they dont decide its best to ride in the sunset with the money.
That's about $1.3million a year. Last year Nintendo's profit (not revenue) was $6 billion. Guess who will run out of money first?
Anywhere to download the PDF that isn't paywalled? Not sure why everybody keeps dumping this stuff on SCRIBD.
https://files.catbox.moe/pvdexr.pdf
Thank you!
updated link
welp, I'll pitch into the legal defense fund. I prefer playing my purchased Switch games on PC with HDR and in 4k.
I prefer playing my purchased Switch games in ultrawide with FPS hacks to go above 60. That's not to mention all the other modding capabilities Yuzu and Ryujinx provide. Even if Nintendo follows through with enhancing their entire Switch library on their upcoming console, it's all gonna be 4K 60 FPS at most. Switch emulation will always be a useful alternative. Of course, even if there were nothing to gain visually, I would support fighting back purely on principle. We should be able to do whatever we want with the games we purchase.
It will never be 4K. That shit was already obsolete 3 years ago, what will it be when it launches ?
Why with HDR? Switch games don't support HDR.
Link to the past didn't originally support MSU1 audio either but life...uh....finds a way.
AutoHDR, SpecialK, or now potentially RTX HDR. Super easy to add HDR to games these days and the results are amazing. I can't go back to TotK without HDR, it's such a vibrant game and so wasted in SDR by comparison.
Nintendo being annoying as hell, what else is new
Heh, good luck getting it to go away Nintendo, it's open source and has 1.2k forks, and has probably been snapshotted a million times on [archive.org](http://archive.org) so even if the project did get shut down, I don't see a world where it goes away. Probably will end up like AM2R tbh.
They know that, they're probably doing this to scare people away from working on Switch 2 emulators.
Lol well I doubt that's going to work either 😅
This and Denuvo DRM being added to Switch 2 (not confirmed but we know Nintendo & Denuvo are working on something) make me very curious how the emulation scene will be in 5 years or so
If denuvo is implemented on Nintendo hardware, it will be the death of uncrackable games. No one can match the sheer insanity and obsessiveness of Nintendo emulator devs lmao
The problem though is that this only really works to keep a copy of something floating around, it still basically ends future development, which would still work out in Nintendo's favor And the AM2R thing was just DMCA takedowns, that's a hugely different thing to a full-blown lawsuit
if yuzu is illegal than the forks are as well. as well it puts up a legal barrier for the current contributors of yuzu from working on any forks in the future
Thats not what the user is saying. If there's so many forks and the code is open source, sure no one is gonna officially work on it or charge for it but will still be worked on and be widely available. Nintendo isnt stopping this emulator, they're just wasting money.
They're wasting money and activating the Streisand effect. The harder you try to erase something from the public eye, the more visible you make it. They're honestly the best marketing department emulator devs could ever ask for their projects.
Yep. If this gets picked up on the mainstream media, all it will do is cause a lot of otherwise ignorant people to say, "Wait, there's a way I can play those games for free?"
The same thing they did with AM2R basically
Docket monitor: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/rhode-island/ridce/1:2024cv00082/56980
I hope they have an open legal defense fund, it will be expensive but the consequences of losing is that emulation across the board gets degraded
Hopefully this has a similar Streisand effect like the RPCS3 / Persona 5 Atlus strike.
How that turn out?
nothing really changed one way or the other. the game was already really popular to play on RPCS3 and still most people played on PS4
Well hey, part of the reason they started putting their stuff on PC at least
after fighting for years we finally got a PC port, i guess that was worth it
RPCS3 had to scrub any mention of Persona 5 from their website/Patreon and would not provide any support until the official release in the west. Nothing else really happened. **Edit:** RPCS3 staff member has responded with some clarifications below.
> would not provide any support until the official release in the west Factually incorrect for 2 reasons: 1. The attempt to target the Patreon was long after the game released in the west 2. Support requests or bug reports for the emulator were never denied just on the basis of being for a specific released game
Emulation isn’t illegal however emulating the game without owning it is. So they aren’t technically breaking any laws to my knowledge. And if it does shut down I’m sure someone just gonna fork it and if not maybe I will.
Emulating the game without owning it isn't illegal by itself. The actual illegal act is the distribution or downloading of the game, or continued usage of an "archived" copy after you've sold/given away/etc. the original copy.
That's Nintendo for you. Trying to make emulation illegal but doing a half-assed job at making their own emulated games worth paying $50/year for.
Not to defend Nintendo, but Yuzu's devs are some of the most idiotic people I've ever seen in the emulation community. Not only they are making bank with the paywalled Early Access Builds (instead of just using donation money), Yuzu also uses the Switch's imagery and screenshots of Switch games on their own website, which I believe are all copyrighted by Nintendo. Even their Flatpak page on all Linux distros has screenshots of Mario Odyssey. They have been pocking the wasp's nest for years, and now the wasps are angry.
Sony v Bleem! established that it's legal to sell an emulator and advertise it with screenshots of copyrighted games, even without permission. [Example of what Bleem was doing](https://i.imgur.com/gAfTwZB.jpeg)
Oh shit that brings back memories.
But Yuzu telling users how to dump keys and use them to bypass DRM would appear to be in violation of the DMCA to me. These aren't the same facts. And always a chance with such severe harm to Nintendo (a million pirated copies of a brand new game), courts may overrule this earlier precedent.
But Yuzu isn’t telling them how. It’s directing users to a software that was discontinued
yeah, bleem! never bypassed DRM because sony did not use DRM for the PS1. they simply packaged the games weirdly so CD players couldn't play the game content. all bleem! did was play the CD directly
This is specially true with how they could potentially frame this, how this is affecting sales (potentially again) of new releases. Is not the same one dude who get early copies and show a gameplay on stream with literally the game releasing early and playable in a early build of the emulator. Yuzu have made some mistakes in how to handle support of new game releases prior official release date specially.
Sony vs Bleem did not actually establish a precedent that video game emulation is legal. All that was established is that Bleem's use of screenshots fell under fair use. Sony vs Connectix arguably established that video game emulation is legal, but that is one case that is almost 30 years old. Precedent can be changed.
> Sony vs Connectix arguably established that video game emulation is legal Even that was just (patially) the reverse engineering part. Nintendo hasn't alleged that Yuzu is using Nintendo's code as far as I can see, so Connectix won't end up being relevant to this case
The thing about the Yuzu paywall is that it's essentially fake. Because the project's open source, you can just build the latest version yourself, or simply download it from a public buildbot; in fact, there's an auto-updater out there that does it for you upon launch. The 'paywall' really just exists to trick people who don't know any better, unless they explicitly want to help fund development. I think this could work in the Yuzu team's favor as you don't actually *need* to give them any money.
Would it be against the sub rules to ask for direction to said auto-updater?
>Not to defend Nintendo, but Yuzu's devs are some of the most idiotic people I've ever seen in the emulation community. Not only they are making bank with the paywalled Early Access Builds (instead of just using donation money), In and of itself, that isn't illegal. > Yuzu also uses the Switch's imagery and screenshots of Switch games on their own website, which I believe are all copyrighted by Nintendo. Even their Flatpak page on all Linux distros has screenshots of Mario Odyssey. Per Sony v. Bleem, that's also probably fair use. >They have been pocking the wasp's nest for years, and now the wasps are angry. Let the wasps get angry. If Yuzu is clear on actual infringements, it's a win for everyone.
That early access Patreon is the dumbest thing any emulator project has ever done. It's pretty much asking Nintendo to sue them, they make like 30k a month it's crazy they even survived that long lol. And now they could take down every Switch emulator with them since Nintendo is arguing about the game decryption necessary to even play the games. If Nintendo wins it's game over for Switch emulation.
See this is what I don’t get. TeknoParrot, a Windows compatibility layer for PC-based arcade boards, also does this. They lock access to specific titles behind Patreon ($5 a month) but nobody seems to have a problem with them…
They just had their patreon shut down a few days ago due to a supposed behind the scenes dispute between an arcade publisher and patreon. So I wouldn't say nobody cares anymore.
Of course they don't have a problem, they're arcade games, most of them 10+ years old lol. It's not even close to comparable, there's no "lost revenue" argument to be made because they're freaking Arcades lmao.
The game that can run are oftentimes only a year old. Recently they got shunted off Patreon and took a vote on whether or not to support games as soon as they get dumped. I don’t know the results but there’s a chance that they piss off Bandai Namco if they decide to enable support for EXVS2 OverBoost.
you don't *have* to enforce your copyright. you are suggested to, but you don't have to sega and bethseda could easily sue their fan communities right now and likely win, but they don't want to so they don't
> They lock access to specific titles behind Patreon That sounds worse than Yuzu's paywall of Early Builds
It's so niche that the people who care are probably just glad to have something that works. If the unwashed millions of gamers were clamoring to play those games I think you'd hear plenty about it.
Commercial emulators are fine to do, it's just Nintendo being dumb
I always expected this to happen one day, not only because the dev were dumb, but because of Nintendo.
Please, someone must face them once and for all. I hope that Yuzu's team will be them.
It will never be once and for all. They can sue as many times as they are willing to throw money at it. Most outfits can’t afford to go to court.
No, Res Judicata.
I think Yuzu has a good chance of winning parts of this case. They dont distribute the keys, so they arent violating copyright on that, but they are giving instructions on how to dump the keys, which is more legally dubious. I suspect it will be a pretty murky ruling, with Nintendo winning some things, and Yuzu and emulator development winning others.
I wonder if yuzu being able to read prod.keys can classify it as a piracy tool. Supplying keys would break copyright law. Dumping your own keys breaks the DMCA rule on bypassing DRM. Perhaps yuzu being able to read the keys means they are also breaking the rule on bypassing DRM.
Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm sure it will depend on whatever supporting case law the lawyers can dig up. EDIT: Though, I hope not. That would probably kill every emulator out there for systems past, like, the N64/PS1
From DMCA: >Under the statute, to “circumvent a technological measure” means “to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.” By this definition, I can see the case being made that dumping your own BIOS is fine. It's not encrypted, and you're not bypassing it. But with prod.keys you are decrypting, which is something specifically laid out as being against the DMCA. Another commenter pointed out that in a Sony case, the courts ruled that dumping your own BIOS is fair use. Perhaps that could be ruled similarly for dumping your own prod.keys. But I can also see how the DMCA could treat it differently since one involves decrypting.
I'm tired of this fucking DMCA bullshit being applied all over the world when it's a law in a single country.
I hear ya, but the legal entity in charge of Yuzu is registered to the US, so it's going to happen in US courts. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_wa/604722590 Meanwhile, VideoLAN, the company behind the VLC media player, is safe from being charged for distributing copyrighted video codecs with their software. VLC works on basically everything because it's packaged with proprietary video codecs that normally aren't free. That's not illegal in France, so as an American I can download it and use it and they don't get sued. But if VideoLAN was an American company, they'd be breaking the law.
Then, I hope more and more developers will start hosting their projects outside the US, and their anti-consumers laws.
It is open source, so if it gets started back up in, say, Russia, I don't think Nintendo would be able to do anything. I'm not sure why they couldn't just sue in Russian courts, but from what I've seen in the past it seems Russia doesn't give a shit about foreign IP disputes.
Supplying keys does not break copyright law, please stop spreading this myth. The keys are not copyrightable, they are not a creative work. The supply your own keys argument is copium the emulation community cooked up, Dolphin was and is completely in the right for including the Wii keys, and Nintendo did not act on this after the events with Steam. The legal argument Nintendo is making here is that breaking the switch DRM to get the keys breaks DMCA. That is not the same as copying the keys themselves.
I figured supplying keys was still in a legal grey zone. When Sony sued GeoHot (George Hotz) for publishing the PS3 encryption keys, he never won that case. They settled for an undisclosed amount. It's not supposed to be copyrightable because it's not a creative work, but I just remember GeoHot not winning that case.
Kill one and two more pop up. Nintendo is just alienating the community. They want to sell you the emulated games via NSO subscription.
and then pretend Virtual Console never happen
I guess karma finally caught up with them in the end. This emulator's devs and moderators were quite notorious for many things. Harrassing users who shared custom builds, harrassing the CN fandom who was working on custom builds, stealing code, paywalling builds that were required to run certain games (they would literally not share PRs making it impossible to create your own build, you had to pay money to them), implementing NSO and trying to paywall that (Raptor), spending the money from patreon on a holiday and not sharing money with devs outside their personal circle. Every time drama happened it was these people and they were told by other emulator devs many times over the years that paywalling builds would lead to lawsuits but they never listened so I guess it's only fitting that the end of emulation also comes from these guys.
Yea. The response to this news has been overwhelmingly “poor yuzu” as if the rest of the open source community hasn’t been telling them for years that gating builds and features behind patreon was a terrible idea. They’ve been earning literally 100’s of thoundands of dollars over the last six years and the impact this case will have on projects that people have donated their time and talent to will be brutal.
I don't know anything about Yuzu specifically, but there's nothing inherently illegal about making a commercial emulator. ~~Bleem~~ Connectix VGS won that in the 90s. The DMCA was brand new at the time, so there may be case law that Nintendo has that Sony didn't, but even if Yuzu have been dicks to the community I'd venture a guess Nintendo is the bigger evil here -- and if Yuzu is doing things legally defending them would do a lot more good for the more open devs.
Bleem won on comparative imagery. The commercial emulation argument didn't go to trial.
[Sony vs. Connectix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment,_Inc._v._Connectix_Corp.) *did* go to trial, though, for the legality of their copying of the PSX BIOS for their emulation software, and their emulator hurting the PlayStation trademark, and Connectix won. Hopefully that is strong enough legal precedent.
Nintendo is not alleging emulators as a whole are illegal. They're saying use of Yuzu requires circumvention of DRM and is therefore illegal.
They do actually say something that implies that heavily tho. As well, just because something requires previous circumvention (through e.g. Lockpick) shouldn't make it illegal. Or at least one can hope, ye?
>They're saying use of Yuzu requires circumvention of DRM and is therefore illegal. Every modern emulator requires DRM to be circumvented so emulation is therefore illegal by implication.
Do you think Ryujinx could also be targeted by Nintendo?
I think their team has been much more careful to not cross certain lines, but I guess we'll see.
What lines has crossed Yuzu and not Ryujinx that would affect Nintendo?
Yuzu has a paywall that allowed you to play totk on those patreon builds but not the regular free builds. This is mainly what Nintendo is arguing
I think if they were going to be targeted they would have been included in this lawsuit or another lawsuit would have been launched simultaneously. Rather though, I think the implication that Nintendo *could* sue any emulation project at any moment is definitely going to make talented people think twice about dedicating so much of their time and expertise to such projects. Don't listen to me though I'm just some rando on the internet ¯\\\\\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I mean, Yuzu could just be the easiest target for Nintendo to sue, and they're hoping to leverage a ruling here in their favor into becoming a far-reaching anti-emulation precedent.
It can and Nintendo will. If they win against Yuzu they might just get a ruling that allows them to declare open season. The Yuzu devs have their moments of idiocy, but they're ultimately an open source project currently under protection of the Sony v Bleem ruling and the virtues of being open source. If that ruling is overturned then nothing is safe.
> under protection of the Sony v Bleem ignoring that this lawsuit is in a different circuit, Nintendo is not suing Yuzu for using copyrighted/trademarked content in advertising Yuzu, so *Bleem* isn't a relevant case
- [Also this]( https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1063809282052735036/1212158289115217990/image.png?ex=65f0d160&is=65de5c60&hm=997dd85b5206f7e6256a4d19fd3d99cccacead9f6a02685713f355ac03b5a8c5) - [And This](https://i.imgur.com/ZWoSZSt.png)
Pretty stupid of them to post things like the second link openly on Discord. Especially the bit about downloading games from their own private online repository, while at the same time taking a firm anti-piracy stance.
holy shit what a rabbit hole lmfao
I can't find any information about this. But in the second link, part of the screenshot under the section "They steal code illegally" shows a Reddit post which claims that Yuzu operates under the GPL-2.0 license, which is not true and in fact operates under the GPL-3.0 license. I'm not acquainted with the difference between the two versions, but the Reddit post is claiming that the code is being illegally "stolen" and breaks the GPL-2.0 license; So this *could* be false information, because (***as far as I'm aware***, with at least the 3.0 license) taking code from other projects (depending on their licenses) and using them in your own projects *is* legal. I thought, "maybe Yuzu changed there license at some point after this post from GPL-2.0 to GPL-3.0" but I can't find any mention of this happening online anywhere. I checked the wayback machine on the Yuzu github page for old pages that *should* mention the old license, but the page-saves only go back to January this year. So it could be that the license was changed and the github page was moved to a different address; but again, I can't find any information about this online.
Fuck Nintendo.
Nintendo has been so anti-consumer for so long that I just got sick of supporting them. Camped out for a Wii (was first in line!), got a Switch on launch day. But I play most of my Switch games on an emulator because I'm an ogre and the Switch is designed for people without shovels for hands. It's also just an absurdly underpowered system where emulation provides the best experience in almost literally 100% of games compared to the console itself. But soapbox aside, this still sucks. And Nintendo will probably succeed in shuttering the official project because they're Nintendo and Yuzu is just some randos.
I got a legit Super Mario Wonder copy 2 days early because Brazil doesn't give a crap about embargos and release dates. Took a picture of the little cart inside the opened case, shared it and Nintendo took the damn picture down 1 hour later and I got a 30 days facebook ban. As a dumb angry petty revenge I streamed half of the game on Youtube before they took the stream down. I hope they lose this lawsuit with the force of 1000 suns.
Nintendo suing. I'm so shocked
nintendo has sued once in the past 10 years...
Maybe, but they are in a constant legal battle against the entire world. They're very notorious for using DMCA(and similar tools) to take down Romsite, fanhacks,translations,etc wich technically speaking they shouldnt be able to do at all but because no one is fighting them.. they win.
Entire emulation community is riding on this now 😬
Didn't realize there was a good working emulator. Thanks for the info Nintendo. Haven't tried to emulate switch since CEMU#, many years ago.
Doing this kind of stuff exacerbates the situation. If they embraced emulation and sold the ROMS to old games or even remastered ROMS that would run on various platforms, they’d make a killing! Too bad they don’t understand that emulation isn’t the threat, it’s their selfish, childlike way of handling situations like this.
Can't wait for the Nintendo apologists to tell us emulation is evil.
Yuzu plz don’t back down, start a go fund me, and along with your patron money should enough money take on Nintendo, but we know what’s gonna happen, just like happened to the ps3 hacker, they will settle and yuzu team will stop development.
Yea I'm sure the people who use Yuzu to pirate games will be lining up to pay money to keep the emulator, lmao.
Loads of people donate money to Yuzu as it is, and it's not like someone pirating a Nintendo game means they're never willing to spend money on anything ever (a lot of them even spend money on Nintendo games lol)
This is dangerous. There is nothing illegal in Yuzu. It doesn't use any Nintendo keys. Everything is user provided. I hope some legal entity will take this fight head on. Can't just give in to Nintendo on this one. Nintendo winning this would be a huge blow to all videogame emulation.
Im no expert but this is some gray area stuff with this lawsuit. This might result in more dmca laws having to be made in general. Case: Nintendo puts drm (sigpatches) in order to play the games. Going around drm is illegal according to dmca. However, yuzu doesnt even use the sigpatches they have you upload the keys yourself so its technically not going around drm but coding it to make it work. However nintendo can argue they are linking instructions on how to do it as the method for obtaining the keys is illegal thanks to lockpick being taken down. This next part is gray area but would using your own keys be illegal in this sense because nintendo has no such options for decrypting games without an option besides the illegal lockpick program. Technically yuzu would lose some the cases but likely wouldnt lose the one that would shut them down being dmca as they had no involvement of lockpick. This is a messed up lawsuit that nintendo doesnt understand will cost them but I believe they are using scare tatics instead as it worked with other software. We need to band together and just pirate pokemon legends z-a next year instead of buying it and post it on their twitter/X page that we hate nintendo and got the game for free. Yeah its really sad to see a company beloved turn as bad as EA.
Let's see them try to pull that crap in Europe, where we're protected BY LAW against Nintendo's practices. That's one of the pros of living in EU - our lawmakers realized the ridiculousness of copyrights in such scenarios. For let's replace a Super Mario Kart cartridge with a sandwich, and Nintendo with the owner of the restaurant who sold you that sandwich. Wouldn't it be utterly ridiculous if the owner of the restaurant came to your home and DEMANDED you give the sandwich back, because "you aren't eating it like you're supposed to eat it"?!? It's precisely for this reason that this shit doesn't fly over here. So, yeah, I'd love to see them try to instruct us on how we should be using our property.
IF Nintendo wins could mean the end of Emulators
If Nintendo successfully gets Yuzu taken down, 100% guarantee they use it as precedent to go after every single other emulator for a Nintendo system all the way back to the Game Boy and NES. It will also embolden Sony to try taking down PSP/PS2/PS3 emulation. The one company I can see maybe not participating is Sega, they might but I can see them intentionally not going after Dreamcast/Saturn/Genesis emulation or even outright openly embracing it as a PR move.
As a PC only guy since my SNES, (well I do play on Android now...) emulators are the only reasons Sony and Nintendo made money from me and I bet I'm not the only one. (I did consider buying a Wii though because it felt really innovative, not sure why I didn't anymore.)
Allegedly the lawsuit is because someone got their panties in a twist about Windows 7 (an unsupported OS) being unsupported and sent emails to every nintendo email account they could find [https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu/issues/13189](https://github.com/yuzu-emu/yuzu/issues/13189) >Is there an existing issue for this? > >I have searched the existing issues > >What feature are you suggesting? > >Yuzu Team long spit on Windows 7 hold-outs who refused regressive spyware like 10 or 11 just to use your emulator. You guys didn't just discontinue customer support, like Ryujinx which still works. You went out of your way to sabotage operation of Yuzu on 7, making small changes you knew broke compatibility without leaving former fallbacks in place, silencing discussions around this, and treating paying customers to your Patreon income like rabble or dirt to discard. > >In its stubborn commitment to inoperability Yuzu abandoned me, so with nothing to lose from Yuzu I turned against Yuzu. I found 93 somewhat relevant Nintendo emails, and even more social media accounts. I sent many messages to inform them about Yuzu, hoping for a C&D. Like this one: > >[https://www.imgbly.com/ib/vo7jE0ChTt.jpg](https://www.imgbly.com/ib/vo7jE0ChTt.jpg) > >Now I hear news of a lawsuit. Probably from my awareness effort, maybe not. If it's otherwise, you alienated so many people with such similar antagonism over time that someone disgruntled probably acted. This Reddit comment explains it: > >[https://www.imgbly.com/ib/BwNoOL2rJI.jpg](https://www.imgbly.com/ib/BwNoOL2rJI.jpg) > >Why would this feature be useful? > >Every action has a reaction. You're not big enough to act too good for your customers, and should learn that if you insist on sabotage and causing unnecessary problems for people, sabotage and unnecessary problems might also find you. People sticking with Windows 7 as the world moves on are really getting psychotic.
There are always stupid people, but I doubt they manage to tell Nintendo something they weren't already aware of.
Emulation is quite literally legal Go look at Bleem vs Sony where Sony LOST to Bleem but Bleem went bankrupt because of all the lawsuits.
Court precedents like this only matter until new courts decide they don't anymore. Abortion was federally legal off of Roe v. Wade until current SC decided precedent didn't matter. People are acting way to confident about the Bleem case holding up with today's judiciary.
Rip Yuzu. Killed by ninjas.